MAKE YOUR EMAIL SMARTER
Experience + Expertise = Smarter Email Starts Here
Want Email Solutions? Make Incremental Improvements for Rockin’ ROI
If you’re searching for email solutions as big, huge fixes that will give you big, huge boosts in ROI, consider thinking small instead. Incremental improvements in your email marketing program can add up to that big boost you’re seeking. As email marketing consultants, we see all kinds of opportunities when new clients come to us. That’s because email is made up of so many parts. Rather than applying one big email solution to a program, we […]
Five More Signs It’s Time for a New ESP
If your email marketing program is working well and your company is growing, the next step will be making sure your email marketing capability grows right alongside, continuing to add to the bottom line. That sometimes means a new email service provider. A while back, we talked about five signs it’s time for a new email service provider (ESP). If you’ve digested and considered those and you’re still not sure if your current ESP is still […]
Be an Email Expert With an Inverted Pyramid Approach
Here’s some oldie but goodie advice that’s as relevant in 2012 as it was in 1912: Use the inverted pyramid for your content. The principle is this: The highest number of people will read the top of the message and fewer as you work your way down the page. Hence the inverted pyramid. For those of us old enough to remember the days before email marketing, those days when magazine ads and direct mail postcards were […]
Need Email Solutions? Think Physics
Teenaged me avoided physics in school. It sounded hard, so I took geology and astronomy instead. That’s too bad because grown-up me has enjoyed learning about physics principles, especially how they apply to email marketing. Take friction, for example. When you learn about physics, you learn friction slows motion. Just as your slick socks will slide across the kitchen floor more easily than your rubber-soled shoes, friction can impede motion in email marketing too. So if […]
Subject Line Length: Test for Results
Subject line best practices tend to be all over the map. We’ve seen studies claiming the shorter subject line is better, and others saying longer subject lines are. And we’ve seen studies saying personalization works and other saying it doesn’t. On subject lines, don’t assume you know the best length. Instead, test, test, test. What’s an email marketer to believe? When it comes to subject lines, the only email marketing best practices you can really depend on […]
Emails Aren’t Sent in Batches but They Are Read in Batches!
As email marketers adhering to email marketing best practices, we’re no longer doing batch-and-blast email on our end, but our recipients are probably checking email in batches on theirs. That was a point made in the ExactTarget 2012 Channel Preference Survey. The survey is a must-read for email marketers from the email newbie to the email expert. Download it and review it for critical information about the channels your customers prefer, from email to direct mail […]
Three More Reasons to Use Triggered Emails
As an email expert, we push using triggered emails for several reasons: high open rates, opportunities to cross- and up-sell, relevant and targeted messaging among them. Here are three more reasons to make triggered emails part of your email marketing program: content marketing, SEO and social sharing. Content marketing is the new wave, and it touches every marketing channel, from video to social to email. And email is easily adapted to a content marketing strategy because […]
These Emails Will Up Your Open Rates
If you want to see a jump in open rates, consider putting more emphasis on these two types of emails: Triggered emails Editorial emails A recent MarketingProfs article highlighted findings from a combined Epsilon and DMA Email Experience Council study. The article provides plenty of snapshots and numbers from the report, and I highly recommend taking a look. However, the biggest takeaway for us as email marketing vendors was the higher open rates enjoyed by triggered […]
In the Email World, Good Is the Enemy of Great…and ROI
If you’re familiar with Jim Collins’ groundbreaking business book, “Good to Great”, you’re probably familiar with the phrase, “good is the enemy of great.” Collins argues that we have plenty of good businesses because they are good enough. Good enough is something you settle for, and it’s definitely not great. Ditto for schools, marriages, and on and on. When something is good, it’s really good enough, and we settle for that rather than strive for great. […]