Empowering Stakeholders in Email Marketing with Customer Data Insights

Leah Miller · 2025-08-01 20:46:58.953207+00

For folks who manage customer comms (specific to email marketing), how do you help inform stakeholders on the data fields or customer attributes available to help create audiences? A large part of my role is to help guide stakeholders based on what is available, but I’d love to help empower them and start from a place of more common ground and I’m curious how/if others are doing this.

Empowering Stakeholders in Email Marketing with Customer Data Insights | CMAweekly Customer Marketing and Advocacy Slack

11 comments

· Sorted by Oldest

Lauren Higbee
·
Maybe make a checklist of what data fields are available to use when creating an audience so your stakeholders have a reference for discussion.
💯1
Shannon Howard
·
Are they building/segmenting their own comms? Or does your team build and you just need to help them figure out who they want to target?
Joel (Salesforce)
·
Never done it before, but I think there’d be value in a Notion page with the attributes listed, a last updated date, a Loom explainer on how to “use” this information with your email marketing requests, & FAQs.
💯1
Leah Miller
·
Shannon Howard In this case, it would be someone coming to my team with a request and either a loose sense of who they want to target, no idea at all and just want to send to everyone, or attributes that aren’t available within Salesforce/Marketo. I’m just finding that these conversations are more difficult than they need to be because there isn’t a shared understanding of what is available. Which I believe falls firmly on our team to solve for, I’m just not sure where to start 🫠
Shannon Howard
·
Sure. I wonder if instead of including the fields, you could ask questions about who needs to receive this, any key criteria, etc. Unless they're familiar with all those fields and comfortable choosing the segmentation themselves.
Leah Miller
·
Yeah, that’s definitely an approach we are working towards. I think that will help a lot. There have just been cases where that question is met with, well what’s available? OR what do you think?
Shannon Howard
·
Ah. I like being a bit more consultative and helping them segment based on goals. I've found not everyone thinks about segmentation the right way, and we can help them think it through more.
1
Leah Miller
·
Yeah, I think that’s the right approach and the better use of time might to make sure that I have the understanding I need in what’s available and how to use to make more effective recommendations.
💯1
Mindy Lyons Blackstock
·
+1 to Shannon Howard I’ve created intake docs to understand and get alignment on the request that clearly states the campaign objectives. From there you can figure out the segmentation needs (and perhaps learn more about your own segmentation limitations / whether you need to dig in there and take it to its next level).
Mindy Lyons Blackstock
·
This will also help you elevate your role from an order taker to a consultative approach
💡1
1
Irwin Hipsman
·
Shannon Howard has hit the spot. Once you do this there are two other things to think about. First is overall health and management of the customer contact database. In a recent survey I did, 80% of customer marketers did theirs was ok, not so good or poor. This should not be acceptable for the customer database. Also, based on the requests you are receiving what additional field would be helpful. This would help make the case to the powers that be. I am taking a deep dive in the health of customer contact database and will soon be offering a free assessment. If that is of interest, let’s chat 1-1.
❤️1

Lauren Higbee
·
Maybe make a checklist of what data fields are available to use when creating an audience so your stakeholders have a reference for discussion.
💯1
Shannon Howard
·
Are they building/segmenting their own comms? Or does your team build and you just need to help them figure out who they want to target?
Joel (Salesforce)
·
Never done it before, but I think there’d be value in a Notion page with the attributes listed, a last updated date, a Loom explainer on how to “use” this information with your email marketing requests, & FAQs.
💯1
Leah Miller
·
Shannon Howard In this case, it would be someone coming to my team with a request and either a loose sense of who they want to target, no idea at all and just want to send to everyone, or attributes that aren’t available within Salesforce/Marketo. I’m just finding that these conversations are more difficult than they need to be because there isn’t a shared understanding of what is available. Which I believe falls firmly on our team to solve for, I’m just not sure where to start 🫠
Shannon Howard
·
Sure. I wonder if instead of including the fields, you could ask questions about who needs to receive this, any key criteria, etc. Unless they're familiar with all those fields and comfortable choosing the segmentation themselves.
Leah Miller
·
Yeah, that’s definitely an approach we are working towards. I think that will help a lot. There have just been cases where that question is met with, well what’s available? OR what do you think?
Shannon Howard
·
Ah. I like being a bit more consultative and helping them segment based on goals. I've found not everyone thinks about segmentation the right way, and we can help them think it through more.
1
Leah Miller
·
Yeah, I think that’s the right approach and the better use of time might to make sure that I have the understanding I need in what’s available and how to use to make more effective recommendations.
💯1
Mindy Lyons Blackstock
·
+1 to Shannon Howard I’ve created intake docs to understand and get alignment on the request that clearly states the campaign objectives. From there you can figure out the segmentation needs (and perhaps learn more about your own segmentation limitations / whether you need to dig in there and take it to its next level).
Mindy Lyons Blackstock
·
This will also help you elevate your role from an order taker to a consultative approach
💡1
1
Irwin Hipsman
·
Shannon Howard has hit the spot. Once you do this there are two other things to think about. First is overall health and management of the customer contact database. In a recent survey I did, 80% of customer marketers did theirs was ok, not so good or poor. This should not be acceptable for the customer database. Also, based on the requests you are receiving what additional field would be helpful. This would help make the case to the powers that be. I am taking a deep dive in the health of customer contact database and will soon be offering a free assessment. If that is of interest, let’s chat 1-1.
❤️1