Email Marketing RulesDesign Analytic: Identify and Solve Actual Problems
Posted on January 22, 2020
Marketers have access to innovative technologies and massive amounts of data to enable connected customer experiences, but time and time again we see our clients struggling to activate it all. Marketers are defining their strategies, selecting key performance indicators, and determining the customer experiences they need to drive those KPIs. Then they’re working with their data scientists and analytics experts to get the reports and models they need.
And that’s the source of the problem.
To understand why, let’s compare marketing to the evolution of car engineering. As automotive technology advanced, the industry recognized the need for a new kind of worker, engineers, who became critical to the design and innovation phases of product development. While modern marketing has acknowledged the need for engineers to execute as our technology and capabilities have advanced, we’ve left our data and analytics teams on the production line.
We’ve siloed our analytics team members, so even though they’re doing what we’re asking them to do, we’re often not driving the results we want. The problem isn’t in the execution, but in the design phase. We’re strategizing and building solutions without one of the key engineers in the room—the analyst.
In this post, Oracle CX Marketing Consulting’s Kaiti Gary and Jennifer Key argue that design analytics is the solution to this disconnect. They explain who needs to be involved to make design analytics work and what steps are involved. Then they share an example scenario so you can see how design analytics works in action.
>> Read the entire post on Oracle’s Modern Marketing Blog
Take the First Step Toward One-to-One Marketing
Posted on January 21, 2020
Ask any marketer how they plan to accomplish their goal of improving customer retention and loyalty and almost without exception they will say, “Better personalization and automation.” That’s code for “We’re not treating our customers like we know them.”
In today’s world where personal curation of products is so high—Design your own tennis shoes! Watch anything, anytime, anywhere! Get vitamins personalized to your gene profile!—expectations of brands to seamlessly communicate with customers is at an all-time high. Missteps can be costly. Just search #[YourBrandName]Fail for a quick sampler.
So how do you systematically get better at personalization and automation? How can you create your first one-to-one marketing experiences? Where do you start to ensure the basic building blocks are in place in order to get to what feels like a personally curated experience across channels?
In this post, Oracle CX Marketing Consulting’ Head of Strategic Services, Clint Kaiser, explains that it starts with responding to behaviors. He then recommends five customer actions that you can use to power your automated and personalized campaigns as you start to build one-to-one marketing experiences.
>> Read the full post on Oracle’s Modern Marketing Blog
Is Mobile-Only Email Design Appropriate for My Brand?
Posted on January 7, 2020
The growth of mobile email reading upended email design a decade ago and gave rise to responsive email design, which is now the dominant approach to crafting emails. However, some brands now see so many mobile opens that they’re considering adopting mobile-only email design. Some pioneering brands already have.
This approach is a throwback to a simpler time. Just like email marketers used to create a single email design optimized for desktops, those who have embraced mobile-only design are creating a single email design optimized for mobile devices.
In this post, members of Oracle CX Marketing Consulting’s Creative Services team discuss:
- What mobile-only email design looks like and how it’s different from responsive email design
- The 4 key advantages of using this design approach
- How to determine is adopting a mobile-only design is appropriate for your brand given your audience
- The 3 primary best practices of mobile-only email design
For the full discussion…
>> Read the entire post on Oracle’s Modern Marketing Blog
The Last Word on December 2019
Posted on January 3, 2020
A roundup of email marketing articles, posts, and tweets you might have missed last month…
Must-read articles, posts & reports
Email Mergers and Acquisitions 2019 (EmailExpert)
Interactive emails are a top trend, but is anyone using them? (Litmus)
The Loyalty Economy (Harvard Business Review)
Email Personalization & Design: What, How, & Why? (Featuring 10+ Email Experts) (Chamaileon)
Insightful & entertaining tweets
For all my #dev and #emailgeek friends out there! 🎉🥳 pic.twitter.com/dw4JGcc9QW
— Ali ‘Roarin 20s’ Fuller (@thealifuller) December 31, 2019
Here’s a resolution for 2019: Secure your ESP! Use a complex password and enable 2FA if your ESP offers it. Please don’t use [companyName]123 as your password – I have seen that way too many times! Think how much customer data you hold in there that’s easily stolen.
— Becs Rivett-Kemm (@becskr) December 17, 2019
This is really all one can hope for. Genius quote by @elaineyav #emailgeeks 📧🤓https://t.co/awnyfslNHx pic.twitter.com/2fDu68wixL
— Bri Loesch (@BriLoesch) December 13, 2019
Noteworthy subject lines
ModCloth, 12/31 – Count down 2019’s best looks.
Foot Locker, 12/31 —Say buh-bye to 2019 in the flyest kicks 🥳
Belk, 12/31 – Pop some bubbly, then save an extra 25%
Walgreens, 12/28 – FSA PSA: 25% off FSA-eligible items NOW!
Williams Sonoma, 12/28 – 5 essentials for a healthy 2020
Everlane, 12/26 – Choose What You Pay Is Here
Big Lots, 12/26 – Buy More, Save More: Post-Xmas edition!
Burlington, 12/25 – Wishing you the merriest of Christmases
Express, 12/25 – All is calm. All is bright. It’s ALL 50% off.
Banana Republic, 12/25 – The merriest day of the year is here ✨
MoMA Design Store, 12/19 – Self-Gifting is Self Love
Burlington, 12/22 — 🎅 ‘Tis the season to give…to yourself
Dick’s Sporting Goods, 12/22 – up to 50% Off Gifts for Them, Easy One Hour Pick Up for YOU!
Walmart, 12/23 — 🎁 That’s a wrap—LAST CHANCE for pickup orders!
Moosejaw, 12/23 – Order by 2pm EST to get it 12/24 🎄
Target, 12/22 – Need last-minute gifts today? Just use Order Pickup or Drive Up.
Quiksilver, 12/22 – Alright Procrastinators – We See You!
Saks Fifth Avenue, 12/12 – Our short list of gift picks (for when you’re short on time)
Nordstrom, 12/22 – Happy Hanukkah!
Bass Pro Shops, 12/14 – Stop by Santa’s Wonderland today!
REI, 12/12 – Shop Now & Be Done Sale: Up to 40% Off
Office Depot, 12/8 – Open For Early Green Monday Deals 💚
Lowe’s Home Improvement, 12/6 – 12 DAYS of CRAFTSMAN is HERE!
Everlane, 12/3 – Regifting? Bad. ReNew? Good.
Zales, 12/5 — 💋 Give Her the Gift That Says “You Are My Icon”
Michaels, 12/12 – Holly ✔️ Jolly ✔️ Throw a Christmas Party That Checks Every Box!
Williams Sonoma, 12/5 – Everything you need to be guest ready + 20% off one item
Neiman Marcus, 12/22 – For winter weddings
Applebee’s Grill + Bar, 12/12 – Win $500 Gift Card for your Ugly Sweater!
Macy’s, 12/6 – Today only: your letter to Santa has double the impact on kids in need!
Quiksilver, 12/6 – Men Who Ride Mountains
New posts on EmailMarketingRules.com
From My Family to Yours, Happy Holidays!
Doing an Email Marketing Holiday Post-Mortem
Holiday Marketing Quarterly: First Quarter 2020 Checklist
Email Deliverability Quarterly: Gmail Spam Filter Changes, SparkPost Acquires eDataSource, and More
From My Family to Yours, Happy Holidays!
Posted on December 25, 2019
Doing an Email Marketing Holiday Post-Mortem
Posted on December 20, 2019
With the New Year shining brightly and full of promise ahead of us, most B2C marketers would love nothing more than to put the holiday season behind them and look ahead to Valentine’s Day and the spring season. We urge you to resist the temptation. Ensure that you learn the lessons of your Christmas Past so your Christmas Future is even better.
Here are several areas to explore as part of your holiday post-mortem, which you can not only review when you kick off the next holiday season campaign planning cycle, but will give you insights and action items that you can use right now:
- Analyze the performance of your holiday email campaigns
- Identify your successful campaigns
- Identify your unsuccessful campaigns
- Map the performance of your email campaigns by day
- Document any workflow issues that impacted email production
- Document any quality control and PR issues
For a full discussion of each of those holiday post-mortem action-items…
>> Read the full post on Oracle’s Modern Marketing Blog
Holiday Marketing Quarterly: First Quarter 2020 Checklist
Posted on December 19, 2019
Oracle’s Holiday Marketing Quarterly gives B2C brands a quarter-by-quarter checklist for how to achieve more during the critical holiday season with their email marketing and other digital marketing channels. Along with guidance on planning, strategy, and prioritization, you’ll get advice and tips from some of Oracle CX Marketing Consulting’s more than 500 digital marketing experts.
Our first quarter guide contains a 27-point checklist and is focused on seizing opportunities, mitigating risks, learning from the just-passed holiday season, and starting to make the larger structural and programmatic changes necessary to succeed during the next holiday season. It covers six areas:
- Holiday Post-Mortems
- Seasonal Buyer Reactivations
- Email Deliverability Recoveries
- Automated Email Optimization & Growth
- Creative Refreshes
- Upgrades & Expansions of Your Tech Stack
For details on each of those areas…
>> Download the 14-page Q1 2020 Holiday Marketing Quarterly
Email Deliverability Quarterly: Gmail Spam Filter Changes, SparkPost Acquires eDataSource, and More
Posted on December 10, 2019
Email deliverability is constantly changing, as inbox providers adjust their filtering algorithms, blacklists tweak their listing criteria, and consumers evolve their definition of spam. That’s why even the best email marketing programs suffer deliverability problems sometimes.
To help you avoid trouble, the Email Deliverability Services team at Oracle CX Marketing Consulting shares the latest news and tips for what to watch out for in our latest Email Deliverability Quarterly.
In this post, Clea Moore and Brian Sullivan explain how the following news and events will impact marketers’ email deliverability:
- Recent Gmail Spam Filter Changes
- SparkPost Acquiring eDataSource
- DigiCert Issues 1st Verified Mark Certificate, Giving Boost to BIMI
- COPRA Bill Introduced in US Senate
For the full discussion of each of these issues…
>> Read the full post on Oracle’s Modern Marketing Blog
The Last Word on November 2019
Posted on December 6, 2019
A roundup of email marketing articles, posts, and tweets you might have missed last month…
Must-read articles, posts & reports
Twilio study finds consumers prefer email and text when communicating with brands (Marketing Land)
Research: Is A Picture Worth 1,000 Words Or 60,000 Words in Marketing? (Email Audience)
Animated PNGs in Email: An Alternative to GIFs? (Litmus)
Dynamic email in Gmail available on Android and iOS (G Suite Updates)
Towards LGPD and Beyond – Legal Bases for Email Marketing (Return Path)
Email Marketing and the 2020 Election (G2)
The Future of Email Marketing: 2020 Edition (emailmonday)
Insightful & entertaining tweets
The email silly season is getting ready to start, buckle up #deliverability peeps as the ride is about to get bumpy #emailgeeks
— Kent McGovern (@KentMcGovern) November 21, 2019
In today’s edition of “I never signed up for these emails”, I just got a random newsletter for “Arizona Cannabis Monthly”…. at my work email address. Uhhhhhh…
— Kristin (@EmailSnarketing) November 7, 2019
I’m so sorry but I just spent 45 minutes troubleshooting a CSS stylesheet that wasn’t working in the Gmail app, and it was all because I declared a capital “!Important” on one line instead of “!important” and I just needed to tell somebody. #emailgeeks
— Matt Byrd (@mparkerbyrd) November 19, 2019
“The enemy of success is not failure…it’s comfort.” – @michellepoler of @HelloFears #optin19 #hellofears
— SparkPost (@SparkPost) October 30, 2019
Noteworthy subject lines
Williams Sonoma, 11/5 – Williams Sonoma presents Thanksgiving with NBC’s TODAY!
HomeGoods, 11/8 – All you need for Friendsgiving feast!
Williams Sonoma, 11/23 – Are You Ready? Last Minute Thanksgiving Essentials: Up to 70% Off!
Olive Garden, 11/22 – 🦃 You get the turkey. We’ll get the sides.
REI, 11/5 – This Black Friday, Opt to Act #OptOutside
Target, 11/6 – Black Friday ad is here! 🎉
The Home Depot, 11/6 – {BLACK FRIDAY PRICES} Start Now
Lowe’s Home Improvement, 11/6 – Black Friday Appliance Savings – Just Got Better
Tractor Supply Company, 11/7 – ❗ TWO NEW DAILY DEALS + Shop Black Friday Prices Now!
Michaels, 11/7 – Seriously! We’re Announcing Black Friday Prices on Trees!
DICK’S Sporting Goods, 11/24 – Black Friday NOW, 20% Off Online & More!
West Elm, 11/24 – 🔶 Ends tonight 🔶 Pre-Black Friday Sale 🔶
Express, 11/23 – VIP access to Black Friday ⚫ Camis & Tanks you’ll love + Members get 50% off
Best Buy, 11/24 – This is how we do BLACK FRIDAY—EARLY. 💃
Zales, 11/22 – 😮 Did You Hear!? The Black Friday Sales is HERE! Save 30-50% Off Everything
Victoria’s Secret, 11/26 – Black Friday deals start now!
Office Depot, 11/27 – EARLY ACCESS to Black Friday is going on now!
JCPenney, 11/27 – STARTS NOW! BLACK FRIDAY DEALS AT JCP.COM
Lane Bryant 11/4 – Our 🎄 holiday 🎄 collection 🎄 has 🎄 arrived!
Bass Pro Shops, 11/4 – Our Christmas gift guide has something for everyone on your list
West Elm, 11/5 – Whoaaaaa! Say hello to our Holiday Seating Event
Bed Bath & Beyond, 11/21 – 😴 Guest-ready: **ALL** Aerobed air mattresses on SALE! + $15 off $50 & 20% Off coupons are available
Neiman Marcus, 11/6 – Plan your holiday décor
Dollar General, 11/4 – Save big on holiday décor. 🎄
Michaels, 11/22 – 33 Days Until Christmas: Up to 50% Off Festive Decorations to Make Your Home a Wonderland!
Nordstrom, 11/23 – Holiday party dresses are here
Anthropologie, 11/27 – Yes, you can wear jeans to a party.
Banana Republic, 11/7 – Winterize your wardrobe with 40% off purchase
Burlington, 11/9 – Cold weather ahead: save on C O A T S
Nordstrom, 11/6 – Want the best boots of the season?
Lane Bryant, 11/22 – 🧥 🧣 Warm up with 30% off. 🧤 👢
Everlane, 11/7 – Introducing: Felted Merino
Neiman Marcus, 11/9 – The Fantasy Gifts | Experience them now
Banana Republic, 11/23 – Have an Insta-worthy sleep in our exclusive pajamas
Express, 11/23 – 50% OFF | Style picks from @laurabeverlin, the 👑 of cozy
Lane Bryant, 11/5 – Introducing Lane Rewards! Sign up today!
Gap, 11/21 – Do good. Feel good. Gift good.
New posts on EmailMarketingRules.com
How to Turn Email Addresses on File into Opt-Ins
Lemonlight: 8 Experts Share Their Tips for Using Video in Email Campaigns
Optimizing Your Email Signup Forms to Maximize Your Email Audience Potential
A/B Testing: Where Marketers Go Wrong
Differentiate Your Messages with These Email From Name Extension Strategies
Properly Diagnosing Email Performance Problems
Posted on December 4, 2019
When faced with a problem, it’s easy to get sidetracked into focusing on superficial metrics or jump to conclusions, especially when it involves what appears to be a quick fix. Instead, marketers need to look beyond the obvious and easy, and ask deeper questions about email performance like:
- What’s the core driver of the issue?
- Are there multiple issues at work here?
- What levers can I pull to mitigate or accelerate what’s happening?
- What’s the best way to test my theories to come to a clear course of action?
In this post by Clint Kaiser, Head of Strategic Services for Oracle Marketing Cloud Consulting, he breaks down some common email performance problems where it’s easy to misidentify the symptoms as the core problem rather than asking more questions and properly identifying the root cause. For instance, he discusses how to diagnose problems like…
- “My open rates are bad and getting worse.”
- “My click rates are bad and getting worse.”
- “Inbox providers keep blocking or bulking my emails.”
- “I have a lot of never-actives.”
For Clint’s recommendations on how to approach these email performance problems…
>> Read the full post on Oracle’s Modern Marketing Blog
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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