MAKE YOUR EMAIL SMARTER
Experience + Expertise = Smarter Email Starts Here
An Email Marketing Best Practices Secret…Shhhh!!
The online edition of BtoB magazine recently ran an article on email marketing secrets and lies about mobile marketing. OK, really there was only one secret and one lie. The biggest takeaway for me was the secret: that you can easily code your emails to render properly no matter which mobile device your recipient has, an iPhone, BlackBerry or Droid. According to the article, coding can make the email appear correctly no matter the smartphone by […]
Should a Preference Center Be One of Your Email Deliverability Tools?
For email marketers, a preference center might seem like something extra. You know, a nice-to-have but not a have-to-have kind of thing. But a recent article in MarketingSherpa about Fedex’s preference center demonstrates that it can be an integral part of your entire email marketing program…and even one of your must-have email deliverability tools. Fedex was able to increase both their deliverability rate and their click-through rate by strategically utilizing and incrementally improving their preference center. […]
Where Should You Swim? When a Shared Pool of IP Addresses Makes Sense
Come on in, the water’s fine…maybe. It depends on whether that “water” is your own pool or one you share. And by pool, we mean IP addresses. As an email marketer, there are two routes you can go: You can pay for your own dedicated IP address that only your organization will use. Or you can spend less money and be part of a shared pool of IP addresses. Typically, if you are a high volume […]
Relational Databases Enable Email Marketing Best Practices…and Relationships!
Can you relate to a relational database? Or did I just speak Greek? If you’re not sure what we’re talking about here, take a look at Marco’s newest blog posting for the Email Experience Council (EEC). In this latest email marketing blog post, Marco tackles relational databases: what they are, why they matter and what you need to know if you’re going to start using one. A relational database helps you implement and adhere to email […]
Yes, Virginia, the Email Marketer Does Play a Role in Content Marketing
All this talk about Content Marketing is probably a) making your head spin if you’re a marketer wondering how you’re going to generate all that content, or b) making you breathe a sigh of relieve because you’re in email and you don’t have to worry about all that. Ah, but email marketer, you can help out your marketing companion! You have a role to play in this Content Marketing game, as the email marketer. First see […]
Teaching Email Marketing Best Practices With What NOT to Do
In keeping with yesterday’s post on the forgetful From address and vague subject line in an email from a company that should have known better, another example of what not to do—if you’re trying to adhere to email marketing best practices. Today’s email marketing best practice? Don’t be annoying! This morning’s inbox presented me with an email threatening to lock my account. Or rather, saying the company had locked my account because I hadn’t been using […]
You Forgo Opens With a Forgetful From Address
This morning I received an email from a company I’ve been doing business with for about four years. Normally one would open such an email, right? But the From name was only “Product Support Group” and the subject line said only “Updates to Google Algorithm.” Looks like spam to me! Which product support group? What about the Google algorithms? Both the From address and subject line were too vague to be real. But I’m an email […]
Email Marketing Best Practices Even a Big Guy Can Learn From This Little Guy
Want a super easy email marketing best practice? Take five minutes out of your email marketing day to read this latest MarketSherpa case study. This story of a small grocery chain making it big with email is a must-read email marketing case study for several reasons. 1) It shows you can succeed even when your creative is poor…something those of us who live, breathe and eat email marketing on a daily basis tend to forget. (I […]
Just as We Predicted: Email Is Alive and Well!
Everyone loves drama (hence the popularity of reality TV!), so I don’t think the cries of email’s demise are going to end any time soon. Therefore it will remain our job as email marketing vendor to watch for the signs that prove otherwise. eMarketer just published more numbers that disprove the naysayers who keep sounding the death knell for email. Although web-based email use might have declined, that doesn’t mean email use itself has declined. Keep […]