OK, I am coming clean: I am a Pinterest neophyte. It seems I am slow to get the hang of it, but get the hang of it I must because at least once a week I see an article on marketing with Pinterest. And it is the job of the email consultant to stay not only on top of but ahead of email marketing trends. With that in mind, I’ve been pondering Pinterest’s place in the email […]

A few days ago, we talked about adding triggered automated emails to your email marketing program as an incremental improvement that can add up to a big boost in email marketing ROI. Our second suggestion was incrementally building your list. Today’s incremental improvement? Our third suggestion is simply this: Be clear. Some might call it being bossy. Okay not bossy, really, but clear on what it is you want someone to do. Too many emails are […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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. […]

Lately our email consultant clients have been expressing some frustration with how the industry works, with all the constant flux and change that makes it so hard to keep up. Oftentimes email marketers feel like they are at the mercy of factors they can’t control, from the ISPs to the government to corporate email filters to changes in technology. As email consultants, we are keenly aware that email marketing is a constantly changing landscape, and keeping […]

When eTail announced the Best-In-Class Awards for 2012, we were delighted to see two of our clients among the winners. That’s quite a win/win for an email consultant! First place goes to… Partnering with Smarter Remarketer, we were part of the team behind Footwear Etc., the First Place winner of the email marketing category. Footwear Etc. is a multi-channel retailer of fashion and comfort footwear. They wanted to understand the value of behavioral marketing as a […]