email marketing

It’s official: 2013 is the Year of Mobile. Statistics on mobile read rates for emails, social media usage on mobile devices and the market share of smart phones vs. “feature” phones are everywhere. Even our own emfluencers have asked “Is it time for responsive email design?” But, more important than trends and even best practices as email marketers consider mobile is knowing your *own* list and whether mobile or responsive email design will pay off.

Gmail has rolled out their new Inbox, featuring a tabbed (categorized) look. There are three default tabs for “Primary,” social notifications and promotions. Many email marketers’ emails will probably be classified as promotions, and so many are concerned that it will decrease open and click through rates.

A few months ago, an email marketing client called who had been collecting email addresses for over 8 years, and they’d never sent out an email. They ask what they needed to do to start sending, since some of those addresses would be pretty old and I answered: time for a Re-Permission Campaign. First, we had to talk about why we needed to ask permission again…

Many email marketers know now that just because you send it, that doesn’t mean it went anywhere. There are many factors that go into your deliverability – the science of whether or not your email makes it to the Inbox. Last week, a client asked us if they would automatically get a one-way ticket to the junk or spam filter if they used “free” in the subject line. They’re thinking with the right mindset – content does matter! But, luckily for promotional email marketers…

When email marketers go from an email platform that doesn’t utilize authentication tactics like Domain Keys and SPF records to one that does — like emfluence — it’s not uncommon to be confused. Why do we have to take these steps?

Have you noticed that if you try to style your email links black, Gmail will override and turn them blue? Try this fix…

On Tuesday night, emfluence and our clients won 4 KCDMA AMBIT Awards! Two for search engine optimization and 2 for email marketing.

It’s an ongoing discussion in the email marketing world: Do you choose to grow your list via opt-in or opt-out methods? I had a client ask me this week what were the real pros and cons and how can they decide what’s right for them.

This year, our Community Director, Jessica Best won’t just be attending South by Southwest, she’ll be presenting! Among the top notch speaker line-up in Austin this March, you’ll find our emfluencer speaking on how to make your email marketing really… well, *rock.*

In a world of crowded inboxes and short attention spans, marketers are always looking for the ‘edge’ – that special something that makes an email stand out and, ultimately, get opened. How do you grab attention? Some marketers are starting to experiment with the use of symbols – like hearts, stars and airplanes – in the subject line.

It's already (almost) October, so it's about time you started planning your 2013 email marketing campaign calendar. I recently gave a presentation on the characters…

What does it mean when your email goes “missing”? How is that different from a bounce? How should email marketers identify and address them differently?

Last week, Hotmail announced it would be offering its users a new inbox experience: Outlook.com. Most of the updates have to do with the look and feel of the user’s inbox. But the biggest gasp for email marketers was the realization that some or all of our subscribers list may suddenly have a new email address: a scary thought for deliverability.

Most businesses today – large and small – are sending some sort of email marketing. Some may send a monthly newsletter or digest. Others may focus on their products and driving sales online and offline. Some may have automated messages in place, like a welcome email. What are the 4 basic types of email that every marketer should be sending?

It’s a sensitive topic… No one wants to admit that they’re old. But, when you have a list… *ahem* of a certain age, you do have to work a little harder to take good care of it.

Let’s say you’ve been collecting names for a long time, but haven’t sent to them yet (this is a bad idea, more on this later) or you have a ton of hand written names that you’ve had typed up and are ready to import into your email database. Before you upload, you should take a couple precautions to ensure that bad addresses don’t wreck your sender reputation and make you look like a Spammer.

Research shows over 125% growth in accessing email via mobile devices in 2011. 77% of mobile email users check their email before they even get out of bed. On average, around 25% of email readers are viewing your emails at least once on their mobile device.

While email marketers are increasingly concerned about how their emails are prioritized in inboxes, the mobile factor has been sneakily increasing its impact. Whether you’re a novice email crafter or an expert coder, here are 4 tips everyone can use to make your emails more mobile-optimized.

Raise your hand if you remember the KISS rule? Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Every day, I see dozens of email marketing campaigns from clients that spend hours tweaking and perfecting their email marketing messages. I’m all for sending out quality product, but are we sweating too much over details our readers skip over?

Here’s my argument for simplicity in email marketing.

Successfully integrating a marketing plan takes some work and is based in good planning. To your consumer, an integrated marketing plan will look seamless. The tone and information will be consistent, the consumer will know exactly where to find you and what to expect when they get there. What can you do to inject harmony and coordination to your brand experience?

One thing we hear often at emfluence is how unavailable digital marketing education seems to be. Sure, you can take another 1-hour webinar on LinkedIn, but where can you find a seminar on strategizing and intgetrating every aspect of your digital marketing?

The answer is in Kansas City, November 9th.

Announcing emfl-U: Digital Bootcamp

Ever wonder what your peers or prospects are most interested in? When was the last time you checked out what your most clicked on link of this year was? We thought we’d pull back the curtain a little and let you know which emfluence articles were most interesting this year.

Your email deliverability – whether or not you’re being delivered to your subscribers’ inboxes – is a huge factor in what return on investment you earn from your email campaigns. After all, if the subscriber doesn’t see your email, they can’t act on it.

Domain Level ReportingOne of the benefits of email marketing is that, like all digital marketing, it comes equipped with analytics and reporting that can talk to you about the status of your campaigns. One of the most important set of metrics to watch is your results by domain. Domain-level reporting allows you to see results not just of your email as a whole, but also across each receiving domain.

It’s probably on the top 5 most asked/most discussed questions in email marketing: “Who should our marketing emails be ‘from’?”

The best “from” varies based on a lot of factors: B2B vs. B2C, profit vs. nonprofit, Sales emails vs. Marketing emails vs. News and Information. Each email type or topic is likely to be sent from your Email Service Provider and you can decide who the email comes from.

So, who should your emails be from?

Whether you attended or if you didn’t get the chance, the notes will be worth gold. Take a peek at the top takeaways from the three keynote presentations at the 2011 emfluence Marketing Platform User Conference.

Helzberg Diamonds offered a deal last week that seemed too good to be true… and turned out it was. Their online system had a glitch and their advertised “surprise savings” were a surprise even to them! These are the moments that define a company’s reputation. There are a lot of lessons to be taken from how Helzberg handled the potential catastrophe.

Email frequency – how often should you send your subscribers email – is a hot topic among email marketers. Just about everyone has a different opinion and usually everyone fiercely believes they’re right. Some will answer “It depends.” In this case, try this on for size: Ask.

For most companies, one of the best open rates they get in their email marketing is on the welcome email. Your welcome email is your first chance to let a new subscriber know what you’re about. It’s an opportunity to catch them when they’re still at their desk or on their mobile device and they’re eager to receive email from you. So how can you get the most out of your welcome messages?

A scary fact: in 2010, only 33% of email users have images turned on by default in their email client, down even further from the 2006 number of just over 50% (Source: Marketing Sherpa, 2010). Yikes! When you’re designing beautiful emails, does your email still fly without images turned on? Check these 5 ways that you should design without images in mind.