It might be 2012 but there are still marketers emailing like it’s 1999. Yes, the quantity over quality approach to building in-house email lists is still going strong. I know, because I am perusing the emails in my inbox and I see plenty from companies who added my name to their list without asking. These are companies I purchased from as a consumer, or downloaded a whitepaper from as an email marketing consultant. In either case, […]

In this industry, it doesn’t matter if you’re an email expert or an email newbie, you’ll talk about email deliverability! That’s because everything we do–every campaign we plan, message we write, email we design, landing page we formulate—everything is for naught if we don’t get into the inbox in the first place. Deliverability isn’t always a known commodity, however, because the number you get from your ESP might not be the actual number that made it […]

As we just wrote about last week, the email marketing industry can be frustrating because so many factors are outside of your control, factors that can keep you out of the inbox. Working with email consultants will definitely help you overcome the challenges of our ever-changing industry, but there are also some tried-and-true email marketing best practices that will help you weather the waves of change and get into the inbox on a consistent basis. These […]

Numbers can be misleading and deceiving, even when they are the same number. Consider six compared to half a dozen. Six sounds smaller, even though the numbers are the same. So sometimes even email consultants like us need to look at the email marketing metrics from a different angle. For example, would it surprise you to learn that around the world, 1 in 5 emails never make it to the inbox? That sounds like an usually […]

There seems to be a lot of rejection these days. No, I’m not talking about your Facebook friend requests. Rather, it’s your email that’s getting the snub. In a March 2012 study by Return Path, only 76.5% of commercial emails reached their intended inbox in the second half of 2011, down from 81% from the first half of the year. Furthermore, in North America, overall inbox placement rates fell from 86.5% to 79.3%, spam increased 30%, […]

Seed lists are commonplace among marketers, as one of the email marketing best practices email consultants recommend. However, with all the changes in our industry, at least one email expert is looking at the role of seed lists with an objective eye. George Bilbrey is president of Return Path and founder of the industry’s first deliverability service provider, Assurance Systems. He asks, “does seed list deliverability monitoring still work?” He asks, because with the changes in […]

Usually people subscribe to your emails because they want information. This is particularly true for B2B marketers, with the longer sales cycle that requires an education period. But it’s also true for B2C marketers whose prospects seek information along the lines of special offers and pricing. It’s still information, whether it’s tips, recipes or coupons. Understand that that’s the mindset of the subscriber: They are handing over an email address to you, and that email address […]

It’s one of the top questions to plague email marketers: “What’s the best frequency for email marketing to optimize response rate?” Is there an generalized optimal email frequency: once a week, once a month, once a day!? Is less more or or is more more?! As you might have already guessed, one of your best email deliverability tools isn’t actually an email delivery tool at all. It’s actually a skill: it’s knowing when to email people […]

Recently I’ve been having a very frustrating experience. My emails haven’t been getting through. As someone that constantly writes about email deliverability and the importance of adhering to email marketing best practices, the irony of this recent development hasn’t escaped me. Granted, the emails I’m referring to are personal emails, from my personal gmail account, to someone who is expecting my emails, but this whole thing got me thinking: If I’m not assured my emails are […]