Search Results: 66
By: Clickz With the first few weeks in 2012 in the history book, some of us may have already fallen back into bad habits or the email hamster routine that allows for little else other than tactical management of the next email campaign (and there is always, the next email campaign). Others may have big strategic initiatives and a laundry list of plans to evaluate for 2012. Getting them done is hard.... [Read more]
By: Clickz How secure is your email list? Does your privacy policy state how you will be using the email addresses you collect? Are your actions in line with the spirit as well as the letter of your privacy policy? While these questions don’t go directly to the bottom-line performance of your list in the short term, they do have implications for your brand. Here’s a mini-case study and... [Read more]
By: Clickz In the column, “Inbox Rising,” I covered how email was poised for another big year as the central hub and heartbeat of any conversations and conversions happening in the digital world. Now, let’s look to see what trends may emerge in 2012. I mean real ones that will likely surface and cause each and every email marketer to adapt in a meaningful way. 1. Major creative overhaul. Boring... [Read more]
By: Clickz In my last column, I wrote about open rate data by message type. Today, we’re going to pull the click-through data by message type and look at that. The data comes from the Email Trends and Benchmarks report presented by Epsilon and the Email Experience Council (EEC); the Q3 2011 report was released last month. As a quick recap: Epsilon and the EEC have defined six message types (definitions... [Read more]
By: Clickz This is one of those questions that most email marketing experts agree on – but we’ve little recent data to prove the point. My theory is that it’s such “conventional wisdom” that people have stopped testing it – the same way they don’t do any more studies to see if smoking causes cancer. Those in the know are in agreement. But it was still exciting... [Read more]
By: Clickz recently sat down with COO Dave Hendricks and CEO Matt Keiser of LiveIntent. LiveIntent was justlisted as number 55 in the 2011 Silicon Alley Top 100. LiveIntent raised $8 million in September of 2011, as it continues to help companies place real-time targeted advertisements within emails. David Daniels Describe real-time email and what you are doing at LiveIntent? Matt Keiser: We often... [Read more]
By: Clickz We all know that many marketers view opens and clicks as the top two most important email metrics. I won’t get into why this can be misleading or even irrelevant to your business goals, but we often consider unengaged subscribers as the ones that have not opened or clicked on a brand’s emails for quite some time. This is an important and potentially confusing group of subscribers... [Read more]
By: Clickz I often speak with inexperienced email marketers that rail against blacklisting. Many are angry that ISPs have the “right” to divert the commercial electronic messages they send from the inbox, sending them to the junk mail folder or, even more frustrating, to the black hole where email missives go and are never seen again. Here’s the thing: the more you understand about... [Read more]
By: Clickz We all know what the holidays mean for email marketers. Late nights, big revenue, and insane frequency. Is it even possible to send 27 emails in 11 days? Big retailers will find out this holiday season, rest assured. When the majority of your revenue comes in eight weeks, all rules get thrown out the window to ensure it’s a successful season. And this spills over to the digital... [Read more]
By: Clickz Earlier this month I had the honor of speaking at the Email Marketing Evolved conference hosted by Apsis in Stockholm, Sweden. It was a great event – a mix of U.S. and European speakers; and talking to attendees got me thinking about the similarities and differences in email marketing, specifically performance, in the U.S. and Europe. Many of the European email marketers I’ve... [Read more]
By: Clickz In a 2010 survey conducted by MarketingSherpa, 31 percent of email marketers cited “improving email deliverability” as a significant challenge to effective email marketing. Based on a white paper about deliverability that I’ve just reviewed, I’m surprised and dismayed that the figure isn’t higher. On average, only 81 percent of legitimate email marketing messages... [Read more]
By: Clickz Email marketers have always been affected by the technical limitations of the channel. In short, you can’t build interactive emails: forms get stripped out in Outlook, Flash doesn’t work, you need to design to the lowest common denominator, etc. For years, email marketers have been patiently waiting for Microsoft and other ISPs to widely roll out interactive email, but despite... [Read more]
By: Clickz I have recently been questioned about how bounces can be harmful if a receiver doesn’t send back the right information. These discussions have been difficult for me because many people question why ESPs can’t just magically know if they are incorrect. Some receiving mail/message transfer agents (MTAs) do report the wrong thing and as such might invalidate a good email address... [Read more]
By: Clickz In part one, I discussed how email fundamentals still rule when it comes to getting your email opened in the inbox. Today, let’s examine more recent strategic trends and how digital marketers must adapt their email program to prevent being ignored as inbox engagement evolves. The Smartphone and Tablet Impact Speaking of mobile consumption of emails, any forward-thinking digital... [Read more]
By: Clickz One of the most important questions you can ask yourself as a B2B email marketer is “What am I trying to accomplish?” To create effective emails, you have to be able to answer that question for your entire email program as well as each message you send out to your distribution list. This question becomes important when companies go into hardcore budgeting mode, where every... [Read more]
By: Clickz While technology surrounding the typical email subscriber may be quickly evolving (see my last column on the new inbox), the most important piece of the marketing equation will continue to be ensuring your messages get read. If they don’t, everything else is near worthless (outside of the branding implications that many hang their hat on). So how does a savvy digital marketer make... [Read more]
By: Clickz A regularly published B2B email newsletter is a staple of most B2B digital marketing strategies. They are a cost-effective, if inefficient, way to nurture prospects and help maintain a relationship over a client’s lifetime. Unlike a typical B2C email message with its strong, conversion-driven focus, the B2B newsletter usually serves multiple purposes, including: Attract prospective... [Read more]
By: Clickz Everybody makes mistakes, even email marketers. You can have any number of controls in place to prevent errors with your email programs, but as long as there is a human involved at some point (and there should be), there are going to be mistakes. Of course, technology isn’t completely off the hook either – Y2K anyone? So, it’s not a question of if you’re going... [Read more]
By: Clickz It’ll be 10 years next month since I went out on my own as an email marketing consultant. The anniversary has me thinking about how much has changed – and how much has stayed the same – during this period in the industry. I was looking back over the conference sessions I was giving back then – one of them, which I co-presented with my colleague (and copywriter extraordinaire)... [Read more]
By: Clickz Dick’s Sporting Goods and JC Penney are leveraging Facebook and Foursquare in goodwill back-to-school marketing campaigns. Dick’s has teamed up with neurocognitive assessment technology company Impact to offer middle and high school athletes a free concussions baseline evaluation. Up to 3,300 schools will participate, including around one million athletes, according to the Findlay,... [Read more]
