Internet marketing research firm MarketingSherpa recently asked online businesses what types of automated emails they send. The results (full chart here) show that outside of welcome, thank you and transactional emails (such as receipts), most business are not fully embracing the power of auto-responders. In fact, based on their data, about 75% of businesses are missing out on the email marketing sweet spot. Why Use Auto-Responders? What's the sweet spot, you might ask? Per the diagram above, newsletters (i.e., one email distributed to many people) have an open rate of around 20%. [...]

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Our goal as savvy email marketers is to look beyond the lure of the one-time conversion and strive to build an ongoing relationship between consumers and our brands. Why is this goal so important? Because it’s been proven through many a marketing study that engaged customers become loyal customers and loyal customers are the most valuable segment in any list or database. This type of highly engaged, loyal customer typically has higher overall lifetime value than the casual consumer. They’re also more likely to be an evangelist, introducing new customers to your brand in a very personal [...]

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Testing should be at the core of your email marketing program. Not only does it help you understand the impact you’re making, but it gives you a much fuller understanding about your customers’ behavior and preferences. It not only tells you where you've been, but where you should (and shouldn't) go with your campaigns. A/B testing is the simplest, most straightforward testing method available. Most of you probably understand what A/B testing entails, but for those who don’t: A/B test is a process through which you provide different versions of an email to statistically significant [...]

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Email overload and inbox fatigue are all too real. But, we all have an "inner circle" of emails we look forward to reading -- you know, the ones we check our spam folders for when we haven't seen them recently. How can you get your emails into that coveted inner circle and -- better still -- keep them there to increase engagement and deliverability? Let's explore three simple ways to do that, with an outstanding email example for each one. 1. Build Momentum From The Welcome Email(s) The welcome email (or email series) is one of the most undervalued tools in the email marketer's bat uti [...]

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In the past, when email marketers noticed a drop in audience engagement, they would increase the volume of email sends, trying to win the attention deficit game by increasing frequency. But this strategy just doesn't work anymore. With the increased usage of mobile devices, smart phones and multi-channel social streams, your customers (or potential customers) now have a wealth of information available at their fingertips around the clock. In fact, it's estimated that three out of four Americans under the age of 35 now check their smart phone or mobile device before even getting out of bed [...]

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How do you decide what products to feature in your emails or which offers to promote in your emails? If you don’t have a process in place that answers these questions, you should. Merchandising for email should be a collaborative process for optimal results. Setting The Promotional Calendar The promotional calendar should be developed with the E-Commerce Manager, Email Marketing Manager, and Product Merchandisers. Any additional, relevant associates should be included, as well. For example, the Mobile Marketing Manager might be a different individual; or, you may have a Brand or Loyalty Ma [...]

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Congrats on generating some awesome leads for your sales team! Now what? As marketers, our primary responsibility is to generate qualified leads for sales. However, our job doesn’t stop immediately after we get the leads in the door. Answering the “Now what?” question can be tricky. Just because someone downloaded your ebook or subscribed to your blog doesn’t mean they are ready for your sales team -- in fact, Gleanster Research (pdf download) found that 50% of leads are qualified, but not ready to buy just yet. Effective lead nurturing campaigns can help you move your leads through [...]

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Best practices and smart tactics go a long way, but the most important part of any successful marketing program – email or otherwise – is building the right team. So, what do you look for when hiring an email designer? Here’s a short list of key factors to help ensure you have the right folks on the job. Web Design Experience This first point is an easy but important one. The pool of applicants who will come in the door with the right email experience already in place is small; so, make sure your potential hire has front-end Web design experience, which will allow them to wear multi [...]

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As you continue to send marketing emails over time, your list continues to grow, and your engagement metrics continue to drop. Over time, the number of long-time subscribers on your list increases. These subscribers have a higher chance of becoming uninterested in your email messages, which they express by failing to open or click. This growing population of unengaged subscribers causes the overall metrics of your emails to drop. So What? ISPs are monitoring email engagement metrics and making decisions based on this. If your subscribers are less engaged than a competitor's, then your email [...]

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[caption id="attachment_34076" align="alignright" width="300"] Image via Shutterstock[/caption] The Valentine’s holiday had me wearing the customary rose-tinted glasses and thoroughly enjoying it, from the candy to the life adventures (our first daughter was born the in wee hours of the 14th). [Editor's note: Congrats, Chris!] It was a reminder, too, that email design is often discussed only in the context of its big brother (Web design) or as an enabler of the great marketing panacea (optimization). We spend a lot of time talking only about challenges in email design, but we can do be [...]

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Too many email marketers are focusing on opens. By "opens," I mean open rates, the ratio of people who receive a marketing email to those who actually open it. [caption id="attachment_32689" align="alignright" width="278"] Image via Shutterstock[/caption] Opens are a very popular stat to track, talk about and try to increase. It's great to do those things, but opens aren't the stat that needs the most focus. There is another stat that deserves far more attention, because it shows you if your campaign is doing its job and earning its keep. But Opens Are Important! Yes, they are. If [...]

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A successful retail email campaign involves much more than just an email. Because it creates customer engagement and results in revenue, a successful email campaign aligns closely with social and e-commerce, resulting in a “trifecta” across all three channels. But, integrating social is more than just asking your subscribers to fan you on Facebook or follow you on Twitter or Pinterest. It requires effectively communicating the value proposition and integrating social as part of the shopping experience. Following are four approaches to successfully interweave email, Facebook and e-commer [...]

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[caption id="attachment_31999" align="alignright" width="270"] Image via shutterstock.com[/caption] There are a lot of supposed monarchies when it comes to email marketing. Depending on the conversation, content rules one day, the user holds the crown on the next, and data picks up responsibilities on weekends. With that many claims to the throne, you’d think messaging would be easier! In reality, they’re multiple facets of the same challenge: aligning content to balance sender and subscriber needs. So, how should we think about constructing messages that a subscriber finds intere [...]

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As a Creative Director, my workday often revolves around crafting and optimizing email communications for big brands. So, I’m always intrigued when new technologies come along that allow me to put another tool in my kit. One of the most exciting developments to come along recently has been the use of video in email. Not the spoofed playback buttons overlaid on a static image, or even animated gifs that simulate video, but honest-to-goodness sound and motion video played directly in a recipient’s inbox. Why is this development so exciting? Well, email is a very brief and fleeting medi [...]

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Open and click-through rates are common metrics used to evaluate the success of email campaigns. But we all know that for retailers, revenue is what really matters. Like every other department in an organization, as the new year begins (or when your fiscal year ends) marketers are requesting and competing for budget. As you prepare, use the following email revenue metrics to help prove your case. Campaign Revenue How much money did you generate on your e-commerce site from a particular email send? Knowing this requires that your emails are appropriately tagged for your online analytics t [...]

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The concept of responsive email has entered into the industry consciousness, though the actual deployment is still far from common. Still, enough senders are experimenting with the technique, and we’re beginning to see patterns in layouts and organization. Any examination of responsive layout patterns must first point to the work of Luke Wroblewski. Wroblewski has written a wonderful series of posts on responsive layout patterns on the Web, which informs many ideas and images (the column drop, layout shifter and associated images port very directly from his web observations). His work is [...]

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More than just a social hub to share images, Pinterest has become a lifestyle brand itself. Exuding a feeling of simple, clean, nearly dreamy -- dare I say aspirational -- moments of pleasure, it's actually influencing a new aesthetic style. In fact, one of the common complaints is how spellbinding the Pinterest experience becomes as users spend hours upon hours exploring content and seeking out new curators of style, inspiration and taste. Adopted primarily by women and at an astounding pace (at this rate there’ll soon be more people with Pinterest accounts than toothbrushes), it’s an [...]

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That moment before you click send on an email to millions of subscribers can really make you sweat, no matter how many times you’ve done it before. Once you hit send, it’s gone to the inbox, and the last thing you want to hear is “did that email go to everyone?” Confirming an email is accurate before it deploys is more than just proofreading and having a second set of eyes; it’s strictly following a well-defined process to ensure that you’re delivering a message that reflects well on your organization. On a rare occasion, mistakes will happen, but you need to constantly work [...]

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Presentation is everything, they say. And this is especially true on the Internet, when your prospective customers can't physically handle your products or talk to you in person. What your readers see in the email you send (its layout and design) significantly impacts how they react to it; namely, whether or not they respond in a way you'd want them to. So, when you really want them to react in a particular way (like taking a survey or buying your new product), your call-to-action should be designed and placed carefully. Why "The Fold" Can Help You Do This "The fold" is the bottom of y [...]

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A few months back, I wrote a post outlining four responsive emails and the tactics they applied to content. I've received significant feedback on that post, so I’m diving back in to show some more responsive emails from my inbox. There’s a range of ideas here, from beginner to advanced tricks. It’s important that we all be looking at examples of what’s happening in the space. There are few best practices established, and fewer quick fixes. The phrase “mobile optimization” is being tossed around a lot, but the idea is new enough that I don’t think we quite know what it means ye [...]

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