Email Marketing RulesWebbula: Roundup for Email Marketing Holiday Tips
Posted on September 2, 2020
The holiday season is just around the corner, so Webbula invited me and 10 other digital marketing experts to share their tips for how to prepare for what will surely be an unusually risk-filled holiday season.
My advice focuses on three areas:
- How the shape of the holiday season is likely to be very different this year, with retailers shifting email campaign volume earlier in the season to lock in sales before late December when risks rise—which we discuss in much more detail in our webinar about Choosing the Best Days to Send Email Campaigns This Holiday Season
- The need for much more contingency planning than usual due to the likelihood of a second wave of coronavirus and the impact that would have on store capacities, staffing levels, and delivery delays—which we discuss in more detail in our third quarter Holiday Marketing Quarterly
- And how businesses need to do a better job at curbside pickup and, more broadly, omnichannel integration—which our consultants rated as a Competitive Differentiator this year
Check our my 12-minute video, plus advice from Jeanne Jennings, Dela Quist, Jenna Tiffany, and the others. A lot of great and varied perspectives to help you think broadly about getting ready for the holiday season this year.
>> Read the full post on Webbula’s blog
Double Opt-In Best Practices
Posted on September 1, 2020
Double opt-in (DOI) permission practices are often seen as unnecessary and harmful to list growth. However, when used correctly, they can improve your email program’s results by protecting your sender reputation, which keeps you from having deliverability problems.
In this post, we answer key questions about double opt-in, including:
- How does a DOI process work?
- What are the advantages of DOI?
- What are the disadvantages of DOI?
- Where should I use a DOI process?
- How can I maximize DOI confirmations?
We also share how we used double opt-in best practices with the Oracle CX Marketing Consulting newsletter, which enjoys a 96% opt-in confirmation rate. As we discuss the best practices, we share screenshots of our subscription confirmation page, opt-in confirmation request email, and opt-in confirmation page so you can see exactly how we put them into action.
Of course, you’re also welcome to experience them yourself by signing up for our twice-monthly newsletter, which is full of advice and insights from our more than 500 digital marketing consultants.
>> Read the entire post on Oracle’s Modern Marketing Blog
On-Demand Webinar: The Email Subscriber Lifecycle
Posted on August 25, 2020
To nourish and grow an email relationship, you need to cater to your subscribers’ needs and wants throughout the entire subscriber lifecycle. That means developing tactics to address the major subscriber moments from beginning to end.
During this free 44-minute on-demand webinar, I discuss:
- The six stages of the subscriber lifecycle, from when a visitor or customer signs up for your promotional emails through when they’re lost as a subscriber
- The pages, emails, and other elements that are a part of each stage of the subscriber lifecycle
- How to improve each lifecycle stage
By the end of the webinar, you’ll understand how to improve subscriber retention as well as increase subscriber lifetime value by optimizing each stage of the lifecycle.
>> Watch the on-demand webinar on Oracle’s Modern Marketing Blog
On-Demand Webinar: The Hierarchy of Subscriber Needs
Posted on August 18, 2020
The key to modern email marketing success is creating relevance for your subscribers. However, this cure-all is often discussed in vague, mystical terms within the narrow context of company-specific examples. Although relevance is indeed in the eye of the beholder, achieving it is both describable and measurable. The Hierarchy of Subscriber Needs is your roadmap for understanding the various components that create relevance and also measuring it.
During this 26-minute on-demand webinar, I discuss:
- Subscribers’ needs for respectful, functional, valuable, and remarkable email experiences
- The best ways that marketers can meet each of those needs
- How to measure how well you’re meeting each of those needs, including secondary success metrics that go beyond the primary ones
To learn all about how the Hierarchy of Subscriber Needs can help your business…
>> Watch the webinar on Oracle’s Modern Marketing Blog
EmailTalk Podcast: The Impact of Coronavirus on Email Marketing with Chad White
Posted on August 17, 2020
I join Taxi for Email Founder Elliot Ross on episode 2 of his new EmailTalk Podcast to discuss how the coronavirus has affected email behavior. But along the way, we discuss a wide range of other topics. In the podcast, I share:
- Two truths and lie about my book-writing career
- My email origin story of how I fell into the email marketing industry
- How email behaviors have changed during the pandemic, including changes in open patterns, email volume, email engagement, and unsubscribe rates
- How the pandemic has affected companies quite differently
- How the recovery coming out of the pandemic will be much more chaotic and individualistic compared to the fairly universal experience in mid-March
- Tips on how the mid-March COVID announcements could have been better
- Thoughts on how device usage now might affect your email design
- Tips on how to handle a lot of new consumer behaviors, such as first-time online buyers and curbside pickup
- How out-of-stocks are driving consumers to try new brands and new retailers, and how retailers should react
- My philosophy on what marketing’s key goal is
- How analytics can power your empathy
- The one thing about I would change about email marketing
To listen to our entire conversion…
>> Visit the EmailTalk.FM website
Webinar on Aug. 26: The Most Critical Email Deliverability Questions
Posted on August 12, 2020
The most critical email deliverability questions are YOUR QUESTIONS.
Join Oracle CX Marketing Consulting’s Email Deliverability Services team for this attendee-driven webinar as they answer your questions about any of the issues that fall under the umbrella of email deliverability. For example, they can answer your questions about inbox placement, sender reputation, authentication, privacy legislation, BIMI, seed lists, click bots, spam fingerprinting, email validation, Gmail tabs, permission practices, inactivity management, spam traps, domain reputation, or anything else.
Our experts, which average over 13 years of deliverability experience each, will take questions throughout the webinar. However, to get your question at the top of our list, please email Daniel.deneweth@oracle.com prior to the live webinar.
The Most Critical Email Deliverability Questions
Date: Wed., Aug. 26, 2020
Time: 1pm ET/10am PT
Duration: 1 hour
Your Presenters:
Daniel Deneweth, Head of Email Deliverability Services, Oracle CX Marketing Consulting
Heather Goff, Director of Deliverability Strategy, Oracle CX Marketing Consulting
Clea Moore, Director of Deliverability Strategy for Email Deliverability Services, Oracle CX Marketing Consulting
Brian Sullivan, Strategic Director of Email Deliverability Services at Oracle CX Marketing Consulting
Chad S. White, Head of Research at Oracle CX Marketing Consulting and author of Email Marketing Rules
>> Register for this free webinar
On-Demand Webinar: The Questions to Ask Instead about Email Marketing ROI
Posted on August 11, 2020
Not achieving your email marketing goals is frustrating, but achieving your goals and then not achieving success is devastating. This happens when marketers and executives ask the wrong questions. When that happens, the answer almost doesn’t matter, because it’s likely to cause you to put the wrong strategies in place regardless. A solid email marketing strategy starts by asking the right questions.
In this series of free on-demand webinars, we’re discussing a number of common email marketing questions that brands ask themselves, and then posing some better questions that brands should ask instead. In our earlier webinars, we discussed email performance measurement and email frequency & list building. In this 19-minute webinar, we look at common questions about email marketing ROI, including…
- How can we reduce our email marketing costs?
- How much does it cost?
- How can we increase our email marketing ROI?
In each case, we’ll explain why those questions aren’t likely to help you achieve the email marketing success that you want, and suggest one or more questions that are better. Along the way, we share advice from some of our more than 500 digital marketing consultants, as well as some real-world experiences from our clients.
To watch the free on-demand webinar…
>> Visit Oracle’s Modern Marketing Blog
On-Demand Webinar: Keep Optimizing Email Marketing Webinar
Posted on August 6, 2020
As a follow-up to my appearance on the Keep Optimizing Podcast, I join host Chloe Thomas and her podcast’s other email marketing expert guests to talk about a wide range of email marketing issues, including:
- How can marketers best prepare themselves for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the rest of the holiday season?
- What do watch out for when running sweepstakes to grow your email list?
- How to think about list hygiene and do it properly?
- How can struggling retailers generate more business with email marketing?
- How has consumer behavior changed this year and how is that impacting your email marketing audience?
- What is email’s role in an omnichannel world?
- What one thing should marketers do to succeed with email marketing this year?
To watch the free on-demand webinar, as well as to access all of the Keep Optimizing podcasts about email marketing…
>> Visit KeepOptimising.com
On-Demand Webinar: Choosing the Best Days to Send Email Campaigns This Holiday Season
Posted on August 5, 2020
This holiday season has the potential to be one of the most turbulent and high stakes in decades. Potential risks include ongoing coronavirus restrictions, a further pullback in consumer spending, disruptions to supply chains and delivery, staffing shortfalls, and more social and political unrest. Preparation and planning are key to overcoming these challenges and protecting your revenue goals. Choosing the right email campaign days this holiday season will be key, and will require the support of other departments across your organization.
In this 37-minute webinar, Clint Kaiser, Danielle Renan, and I share insights into trends during the 2019 holiday season as well as our predictions for the 2020 holiday season. We’ll answer key questions, such as…
- What are the best days to send email during the pre-Thanksgiving period?
- With fewer people likely to travel for Thanksgiving this year, how will Thanksgiving be affected as a potential campaign day?
- Black Friday and Cyber Monday are perennially the top 2 busiest email marketing days of the year. Is sending on Black Friday and Cyber Monday still worth it?
- What are the highest revenue per email days during the holiday season?
- How do campaigns perform on Green Monday?
- Has email volume been trending up or down for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day?
- What happens to unsubscribe rates over the course of the holiday season?
We answer all of those questions and many more, plus we’ll talk about some broader digital marketing trends you should plan for this holiday season. Watch the on-demand webinar to get insights you can use to help plan your holiday marketing campaigns…then download our third quarter Holiday Marketing Quarterly checklist to get even more holiday planning advice.
>> Watch the free webinar on Oracle’s Modern Marketing Blog
The Last Word on July 2020
Posted on August 3, 2020
A roundup of email marketing articles, posts, and tweets you might have missed last month…
Must-read articles, posts & reports
Learning from Failure: Stories and Lessons from Members of Only Influencers (Only Influencers)
Email engagement ‘highest in five-year period’ (Digital Intelligence)
Insightful & entertaining tweets
Hey Brand, if you’re not giving me a discount/offer/surprise, don’t send me a happy birthday email.
— 𝔸𝕃𝔼𝕏 (@alexcwilliams) July 1, 2020
We are all being tested currently by consumers. 61 percent claim that how a brand responds during the crisis will have a large impact on whether they continue buying it when the crisis is over.
Build #trust
— Mathew Sweezey (@msweezey) July 20, 2020
launching some workflows is like giving birth. i plan spending the next week watching it like a new mother. #emailgeeks #digitalmarketing
— Joi Tamber-Brooks (@joibrooks) July 22, 2020
First signting of bundles in the @gmail Promotions tab in Gmail web. Are Annotations next? Getting ready for a @PeakInbox announcement. #emailgeeks pic.twitter.com/DpgaXKSl1v
— Brian Sisolak (@bsisolak) July 29, 2020
Noteworthy subject lines
Great Gap Sale, 7/5 – 2 codes, 3 summer deals & a Happy 4th!
Walmart, 7/22 – Check off your school shopping list for less ✔️ 💰
Big Lots, 7/22 – Big deals on back-to-class checklist items
Belk, 7/22 – Extra 50% off back to school cuteness 📚
Michaels, 7/18 – Dear parents: Your kids are invited to Camp Creativity online + coupon inside!
Zales, 7/29 – 🤗 Wearable Optimism | Gemstones
Omaha Steaks, 7/15 – Stay prepared with a full freezer – and get Free Shipping.
Bass Pro Shops, 7/28 – Now shipping delicious Mr. Steak meats to your door
REI, 7/26 – Turn Your Backyard into the Ultimate Outdoor Kitchen
Bed Bath & Beyond, 7/30 – Grilling gear starting at $7.99 🍢 Buy online and use contactless Curbside or Store Pickup. ** Redeem you 20% or $20 coupon.
Williams Sonoma, 7/24 – Make Flour Shop’s pop-up cakes at home
Crate & Barrel, 7/22 – Better than the ice cream truck.
Williams Sonoma, 7/14 – What makes a complete kitchen?
Target, 7/30 – Get a move on your furniture sale 🚗
Big Lots, 7/27 – Home beauty begins with Broyhill furniture
West Elm, 7/18 – Maximize your small space with our FREE Design Crew
Staples, 7/22 – Deals to stay safe and productive.
Banana Republic, 7/14 –Learn About Face Masks
Petco, 7/15 – Dog friendly workout ideas! 😅
Target, 7/29 – Comfy, stylish sneakers for everyone 👟
Bonobos, 7/11 – Summer Shirts > Bummer Shirts
Underground Cellar, 7/28 – Here’s a $26 Wine Credit! 🎉
Michaels, 7/30 – Mark Your Planner: National Planner Day is August 1st 🙌
Anthropologie, 7/28 – Seen in the Hamptons: TIE DYE
MoMA Design Store, 7/15 – UNIQLO’s New Text Message T-Shirts
ModCloth, 7/13 – We’re all about @MissAlexLaRosa!
Neiman Marcus, 7/26 – Leading with love
Zales, 7/18 – Celebrate Bold, Confident and Strong Women With Our Favorite Collections
New posts on EmailMarketingRules.com
On-Demand Webinar: Understanding the Mailbox Provider Landscape
Planning for a Hard-to-Plan-for 2020 Holiday Season
UNSPAM Conference: Work & Industry Trends
Keep Optimising Podcast: Chad S. White, Author of ‘Email Marketing Rules’
Email List Churn: How to Reduce Both Passive & Active Opt-Outs
Welcome! Email Marketing Rules is your guide to understanding the best practices of this complex, often misunderstood channel as you craft the best executions for your brand. Every week, we’ll explore strategies and tactics, discuss tips and inspiration, and dig into industry news and trends.
Chad S. White
Head of Research
Oracle Digital Experience Agency
Author of Email Marketing Rules and nearly 4,000 articles about digital and email marketing
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