At Litmus Live (formerly known as The Email Design Conference)<\/a>, Andrea Mignolo talked a lot about the concept of leadership. Often, we equate management with leadership, but true leaders don\u2019t wait for a promotion or permission to start leading\u2014they just do it.<\/p>\n In our State of Email Production ebook<\/a>, we found that nearly 38% of US companies need the approval of 4 or more people before sending an email. That\u2019s a lot of people waiting around for a \u201cyes.\u201d<\/p>\n As daunting as it may be, it\u2019s time to stop waiting and start doing. Go ahead, test some subject lines or preheader text. Experiment with funny or engaging ALT text<\/a>. Get out there and do it.<\/p>\n Find evidence that the thing you want to do works, either from a friend\u2019s experience, case study, or resources around the Internet (like right here at the Litmus blog!). To be persuasive, you have to find the data. This can be quantitative metrics or qualitative feedback.<\/p>\n When it comes to your campaigns, the most important thing is to clearly establish your goals and objectives, and then measure against those specific goals and objectives. You may find that not every campaign is measured the same way; for example, our award-winning TEDC save the date email<\/a> wasn\u2019t a success in terms of opens and clicks. Instead, we asked them to engage on social because we embedded a live Twitter feed in the email. And tweet they did!<\/p>\n That\u2019s why goals are so important. Once you define your goals<\/a> for your campaign, you have a framework to begin testing, tweaking, and gathering the data you need to make your case. Know your campaigns inside and out to see how successful you\u2019ve been against your goals, measuring opens, clicks, reading duration, web visits, sales inquiries, and more.<\/p>\n To be persuasive in making your case, make sure those goals match up with broader organizational goals, and use the data to connect your campaign\u2019s success to the success of your organization as a whole.<\/p>\n At work, you can\u2019t be a lone wolf. This can be hard if you\u2019re a team of one or two like 41.5% of email marketers we surveyed in our State of Email Production<\/a> ebook. (That climbs to 48% for companies smaller than 500 people!)<\/p>\n To get things done, you have to work with others in your organization and beyond, and gathering allies to help your cause is an important step in pitching anything, even something small.<\/p>\n This doesn\u2019t have to be formal or Survivor-like. If you\u2019re having a hard time convincing someone of your idea or your value, then ask others on your team to help you out. It may take convincing them to get on your side or giving them a snapshot of what you\u2019re presenting at the next meeting.<\/p>\n When it comes to making decisions, all it takes is one person to tip a crowd into a bandwagon effect<\/a>. Once one person agrees to something, the rest tend to agree. It\u2019s a powerful force that can be set in motion even with an offhand comment or a smile from your ally.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re not ready to take the leap at your regular job, or don\u2019t feel like your company culture supports your crazy email geek ideas, start a side project. (Yes, on your own time.) Start experimenting on your own to gather the data that will arm you in your next discussion.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re at a loss of where to start, find a contest (like ours in the Community<\/a>) or try to recreate a really cool hack or trick you learned about at that conference that one time<\/a>. Don\u2019t worry about carefully planning your project\u2014just get going. If you\u2019re not sure where to start, career sites like The Daily Muse<\/a> have some great resources (and motivation) to make the leap.<\/p>\n Whether or not the side project turns into something you use at work, you\u2019ve created something just for you (and your portfolio) that helps you build the skills you need to succeed.<\/p>\n Once you start to get noticed for your killer design or marketing skills, you\u2019ll need to be prepared for the conversations that follow. Maybe you need more budget\u2014or maybe you want a higher salary<\/a>.<\/p>\n No matter what, keep these things in mind:<\/p>\n Ultimately, you have to answer two major questions for your boss:<\/p>\n If you can answer both of these questions (ideally with numbers) then you can prove you\u2019ve done the due diligence. Put yourself into the shoes of your manager and think about resource constraints, budget constraints, potential impact on process, and, of course, revenue. How does what you\u2019re suggesting help the business, but also how can you mitigate negative impacts, like a decreased budget, before your manager even has to think about it?<\/p>\n Making your case is easier said than done. We put together this free downloadable template to work through your ideas and make sure you’re hitting all the right points.<\/p>\n Pitch away \u2192<\/p>\n![\"facebook-In-Stream_Square___Bildschirmfoto](\"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/facebook-in-stream_square___bildschirmfoto-2016-07-26-um-1.42.40-pm.png\")
<\/figure>\nGather evidence + allies<\/h2>\n
Use data to your advantage<\/h3>\n
Gather allies<\/h3>\n
Start a side project<\/h3>\n
How to make your case<\/h2>\n
\n
\n
Now, go advocate for yourself!<\/h2>\n
Want more resources like this?<\/h2>\n