Mobile Marketing: Will It Work For You? Maybe it already does. Although the hype tends to focus on Mobile Web, few marketers have actually tried this channel and even fewer made money from it. But think of all those email enabled BlackBerries and cell phones. They're getting your message just fine so long as you follow some basic rules. READ MORE...   |
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What Works In B2B Email? Sending email to consumers and B2B contacts can be very different exercises, requiring distinct approaches on copy, tone and content. A good place to start is recognizing that more and more business people read their email on text-only devices such as BlackBerries. Here are our top 5 optimization tips for bringing relevance and resonance to your B2B messages. READ MORE... |
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Measure & Optimize "Sticking with what works" can be the biggest killer of email performance. New anti-spam techniques and changing consumer preferences all conspire to blunt the efficiency of your programs the longer you keep them. Solution? Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, but do commit to a process of continuous improvement. READ MORE... |
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Re-engaging Inactive Customers It is hard enough to build email lists without big portions of subscribers going inactive every year. Here are the five most important things you can do about it. READ MORE... |
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Delivery is The Whole Journey It is tempting to view email deployment as only a delivery problem, solved purely by precautions such as spam checks and white listing. It helps to view this more holistically - a message isn't "delivered" until it resides in the cerebral cortex of your recipient's brain. READ MORE... |
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Word Of Mouth Email Otherwise known as viral email marketing, the quest is the same. How do you get people to tell their friends about you and your amazing offer or email newsletter? The answer is a proper blend of art and science. READ MORE... |
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Perfect Landings Don't make the last link in your email campaign the weakest - landing pages are too important to neglect. The reason? Think of it as where you typically close the deal. Here's five ways to pilot perfect landings. READ MORE... |
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Building A Content Strategy Content decisions are rooted in the very value proposition of a business - its expertise. The purpose of a content strategy is to package this expertise for wider distribution. Here are five key steps to doing that. READ MORE... |
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Permission: No need to beg 'Growing the list' is right up there on the hierarchy of needs of most email marketers, but there is always that initial obstacle of obtaining explicit opt-in permission. No need to beg! Permission is what distinguishes email from all other marketing media and there are many effective ways to get it. READ MORE... |
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Triggered Messaging If your emails all have the same purpose, look, feel and - notably - promotional hype to them, chances are you should expand the repertoire. Email customer communications should be as multi-faceted as the relationship itself. Triggered Messaging is an ideal tool to help you achieve this in an automated yet intimate manner. READ MORE... |
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Why 'Above the Fold'? The term originated with newspapers, typically folded in half to fit vendor newsstands and coin boxes, and then it entered the direct marketing lexicon. Inbox conducted some recent tests on various client e-newsletters to determine how big an impact article and banner location has on click rates. If the findings are at all surprising, it is their consistency. READ MORE... |
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How To Control Hard Bounces ISPs increasingly view the way you manage invalid email addresses (hard bounces) as an indicator of spamming. Mail twice to the same invalid address and you risk all future communications being blocked by that ISP. Best practice is for your email system to make this an impossibility. READ MORE... |
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Eight Ways To Reduce Unsubscribes If you're experiencing list burnout it could be your subscribers saying they want more choice. Keep your email marketing contacts coming back for more with these simple tips to prevent them from clicking on "unsubscribe". READ MORE... |
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How to grow your list Build it and they will come doesn't cut it anymore. You've produced a newsletter that engages your audience and provides tons of value, now you want it to reach more people. What are the best ways to opt them in? READ MORE... |
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Email and Search Engine Marketing Does it really matter what day of the week or hour of the day to send your message? According to a Return Path survey, it's not so much choosing the really good times, as avoiding the really bad. READ MORE... |
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When to send Build it and they will come doesn't cut it anymore. You've produced a newsletter that engages your audience and provides tons of value, now you want it to reach more people. What are the best ways to opt them in? READ MORE... |
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Image Blocking This is becoming all too commonplace among email clients such as Microsoft Outlook and Gmail, as well as major ISPs such as AOL. Although most commercial email traffic is HTML, expect images to take a back seat to well written text. READ MORE... |
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Subject line survival training Before writing that next email subject line, think of the gauntlet of obstacles it will run between leaving your server and entering your reader's consciousness. Here's how to write them. READ MORE... |
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Newsletter Design Don't discard any time-honored techniques you may have learned in the print world. As newspaper and magazine publishers can attest, the best way to maximize ad performance is to have them play second fiddle to your real content READ MORE... |
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Don't forget the Creative Brief Effective marketing campaigns begin with a creative brief, and this is especially important with email. This simple document crystallizes the communication goals of a campaign and can mean the difference between unfocused messaging and creative that is relevant and motivating. READ MORE... |
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Getting personal Personalization usually begins with putting the recipient's first name in the salutation, but can go much deeper depending on the quality of the contact database. Do you know what your customers buy, when they buy and how much? READ MORE... |
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How to make it viral You know you're doing something right in an email campaign when the number of people who open a message exceeds the number in the mailing list because of the sheer volume being forwarded to friends. READ MORE... |
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Mastering the subject line More than a few email marketing campaigns have found a well written and compelling subject line to be the single biggest determinant of response. READ MORE... |
