Recap from Marketing Sherpa: Always Bet on Data (And Black)

Last week, Rapleaf joined hundreds of other email companies and afficionados at the Paris Las Vegas Casino and Hotel for the Marketing Sherpa Email Summit.

While outside, Lady Gaga impersonators dealt blackjack and Nebraskan tourists gazed down from the top of an Eiffel Tower only 51.6% as tall as the original, one conference hall (and two lecture rooms) buzzed with conversations about ESPs, deliverability, email design, and, of course, schwag.

There were some things everyone was talking about. That crazy rainbow glowing wall at the Responsys booth. Those adorable inflatable dinosaurs from Bronto. The never-ending Four Seasons music playing in the bathrooms.

But what I kept hearing in the middle of all this e-mail e-nthusiam was just how much people love data.

The concepts of big data and its applications (such as email personalization) have been around for years but they’re just now becoming familiar and accessible to most people. Sure, some of this is from sensationalistic headlines like ‘Big Data Can Predict the Future’ but a lot of it is from the plain and simple fact that data works. A recent Marketing Sherpa article cites a Fortune 500 brand’s weekly newsletter that saw a 400% increase in reactivation of inactive subscribers after implementing data-driven personalization. Four hundred percent! Data works and we all love it when something works so well.

This new love of data beyond the hype is what I saw at the summit. People approached our booth not asking what data is, but how they could get it. Small companies and massive organizations alike have seen data from afar, developed a little crush, and found themselves ready to take the next step with such a lovely marketing tool.

Don’t believe me? Look at all these data-lovers from the summit!