We push testing in this email marketing blog. A lot. For good reason. Testing is how you learn what works and what doesn’t. Testing is how you continually improve your email marketing. However, there’s an aspect I hadn’t considered before with the seemingly simple A/B split test: knowing you can trust your results! Is a 2% difference really a 2% difference or only an anomaly? Did you test a large enough sample size to get an […]

What does a global economy mean to a U.S. email marketer? It means you need help. And the DMA has it. Yes, spam might be a distinctly American food, but as unsolicited email, it’s known the world over. And you want to avoid being seen as spam by making sure you know the rules and regulations for countries other than your own. The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) partnered with the Email Experience Council (EEC) to put […]

…it’s about them. Them being the person getting those emails your team is sending out in the hopes of getting opens, click throughs and sales. I have seen a couple of articles lately driving this point home which reminds me that although it’s common sense to make our emails about the recipient, we often lose sight of that. This customer-centric attitude goes beyond email marketing best practices. All marketing needs to be customer-centric. Perhaps in email, […]

It’s that time of year, time to take stock of the past year, assess your email marketing program, and plan for a better year ahead. OK, really it’s not. It’s July. But halfway through the year is a perfect time to look back and learn. Six months gives you enough data to look for trends and react to them. Ideally you’re following email marketing best practices and conducting ongoing assessments. Spotting trends, however, requires a few […]

Here’s something to think about: What if the first impression made by your email isn’t made by your email? What if your first impression happens without your email ever being opened? You’re always branding. But your emails aren’t always getting opened. What does that mean? Rethink your email marketing best practices in such a way that even if recipients don’t open your email, make sure your From and your subject line are doing something for you. […]

Looking through some old notes, I came across this MarketingSherpa chart from May showing the most effective tactics for growing your in-house email list. It resonated anew with me today because of the response to a post published by our CEO at the Email Critic blog.  Marco’s post argued for having more than a simple sign up box on your website for encouraging subscriptions. At ClickMail we encourage our email marketing clients to remember that an […]

Although Kara Trivunovic is being a little tongue-in-cheek in her EmailInsider post on why marketers should send email birthday greetings, one sentence in here really gave me pause. Kara cites examples of her clients getting appreciative notes upon receiving a birthday email, including this one: “You can’t know how much this means to me. This is the first year I am celebrating my birthday since my wife passed away. It put a smile on my face, […]

These days, people can find you any number of ways. They might type a search term into Google and find your website or your blog. They might see a posting on a friend’s Facebook wall and find you that way. A tweet might lead them to your store or home page. Or maybe a YouTube video gets shared and they learn about you that way. It’s a bonanza, having all the new ways to get introduced […]

Are your email marketing best practices engaging? If you’re thinking email doesn’t engage, social media does, we have news for you. According to a Customer Engagement Report Summary, companies reported the following methods as most likely to increase online engagement with customers: *         Email newsletters 72% *         Presence on social networks 48% *         Micro-blogging (for example, Twitter) 46% Perhaps these statistics again emphasize the […]