Email Marketing RulesHow to Improve All 5 Steps of a Curbside Pickup
Posted on October 13, 2020
Driven by health concerns and health regulations restricting store capacities, curbside pickup has become a significant new fulfillment channel for retailers, restaurants, and other B2C brands. However, because of the sudden need for this channel, it was implemented and ramped up hastily, often with manual processes and temporary fixes that have led to some poor customer experiences.
For example, I recently placed an order online and selected curbside pickup from a local store. Later that day, I received a text and email saying that my order was ready for pickup. The next day I went to the store and clicked the link in the SMS I’d received to indicate that I had arrived.
However, when no one had come out to my car after 15 minutes, I looked at the SMS to see if there was a store number to call. There wasn’t, so I clicked the “check-in” link again and saw that the check-in landing page had defaulted me to a store location 200 miles away—where no one had bothered to call me and tell me that I’d checked in at the wrong store. I changed the store location to the one I’d sent my order to and re-checked in.
About 10 minutes later, someone comes to my car and tries to give me a product that’s a different color and brand than what I ordered. I told the associate that I didn’t want a substitution and they said that they’d find the right product. Five minutes later, they call me to say that they have the product in-stock and that it will take 10 minutes to pull it. However, 10 minutes later they call me back to say that they don’t have all of my order in stock. I decided to cancel my order, and later that day I bought from another retailer instead.
Overall, not a great customer experience. It was particularly egregious because there were breakdowns in at least three of the five steps of a curbside pickup process. Let’s talk about those five steps and the different approaches that you could take to each one…
>> Read the entire post on Oracle’ Modern Marketing Blog
Webinar on Oct. 27: Email Accessibility
Posted on October 12, 2020
The law requires companies to make their email messages accessible by people with visual and other disabilities or else face significant fines. However, rather than seeing this as purely a compliance issue, we see it as an opportunity to expand the reach and impact of your email marketing program, especially going into the holiday season.
During this webinar, we’ll explain:
- What’s required by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), The Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), and other laws governing email accessibility
- How many people have impairments that allow them to benefit from email accessibility
- How marketers can adapt their email designs to be more inclusive and broaden the impact of their email programs
You’ll leave this webinar with a better understanding of your legal responsibilities and a clear list of email design improvements that you can make that will benefit all of your subscribers.
Email Accessibility: Fulfilling Your Legal Responsibilities & Expanding Your Reach
Date: Oct. 27
Time: 1pm ET
Duration: 1 hour
Your Presenters:
Jason Witt, Creative Director for Creative Services, Oracle CX Marketing Consulting
Lauren Castady, Associate Creative Director for Creative Services, Oracle CX Marketing Consulting
Chad S. White, Head of Research, Oracle CX Marketing Consulting (moderator)
>> Register for this free webinar
Holiday Marketing Quarterly: Fourth Quarter 2020 Checklist
Posted on October 9, 2020
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 fourth quarter guide contains a 21-point checklist that helps you wrap up your final holiday prep and take action during the holiday season to maximize results and minimize problems. It covers six areas:
- Engaging your seasonal buyers
- Adjusting your automated campaigns
- Leveraging your new capabilities
- Coordinating across your channels
- Doing incremental A/B testing
- Finalizing your plans
For details on each of those…
>> Download the 14-page Q4 2020 Holiday Marketing Quarterly
Email Deliverability Quarterly: Gmail Launches BIMI Pilot, DigiCert-Valimail Partnership, and More
Posted on October 6, 2020
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, Daniel Deneweth, Heather Goff, Clea Moore, and Brian Sullivan explain how the following news and events will impact marketers’ email deliverability:
- Gmail Launches BIMI Pilot
- BIMI Gets a Boost with DigiCert-Valimail Partnership
- Final Text of CCPA Approved
- Gmail Launches Postmaster API
- Internet Giant J2 Global Acquires Kickbox
For the full discussion of each of these issues…
>> Read the full post on Oracle’s Modern Marketing Blog
The Last Word on September 2020
Posted on October 5, 2020
A roundup of email marketing articles, posts, and tweets you might have missed last month…
Must-read articles, posts & reports
Developer preview of AMP for email in Outlook.com – no longer supported (Microsoft)
Email Comes in Third in Driving Online Purchases, Study Finds (MediaPost)
Your Face Here: Creating illustration guidelines for a more inclusive visual identity (Airbnb Design)
3 Ways to Get What You Want by Doing Your Homework (Copyblogger)
New Blogging Statistics: Blogging still works, especially for the 10% of bloggers who do things very differently… (Orbit Media Studios)
Insightful & entertaining tweets
Even Buzzfeed makes email booboos sometimes 🍁😭 pic.twitter.com/fO7NoSWrTN
— Becs Rivett-Kemm (@becskr) September 3, 2020
Stop. Writing. Email. Copy. That. Says. “Learn more about X here” or “Click here to learn more about X.”
— Morbidda Destiny 🧙🏼♀️ (@EmailSnarketing) September 9, 2020
How to make email more readable:
✉️ Use real HTML live text
↕️ Give your copy space to breathe
💪 Create a strong hierarchy
👉 Use italic/bold for emphasis, but sparingly
🚫 Avoid centered copy— Litmus (@litmusapp) September 15, 2020
Noteworthy subject lines
VS PINK, 9/3 – PINK GIRLS VOTE! Get ready for election day!
Michaels, 9/19 – 🎅 🚂 Next Stop: Lemax Christmas Village! 2020 Collectibles Are Here ->
ModCloth, 9/14 – Witch better have my candy. 🧙♀️
Home Depot, 9/10 – 🎃 Make the Most of Halloween 🎃
Lowe’s Home Improvement, 9/10 – Kickoff football season with Lowe’s.
Bed Bath & Beyond, 9/30 – Same Day Delivery with Shipd—get it TODAY! 📦 🚚 ** Redeem your 20% coupon.
Dollar General, 9/5 – DG Pickup: Order ahead for free and pick up on your schedule.
Banana Republic, 9/24 – Introducting Banana Republic Rewards Program
Sephora Insider, 9/19 – Your points have been building up. See how far you’ve come this year.
GapCash, 9/25 – New face masks are here!
Crate and Barrel, 9/13 – Home bar remix: The Calder collection.
Uncommon Goods, 9/9 – 🎂 🍹 Happy Birthday distance-toasting: let’s make it a thing.
Office Depot, 9/19 – Seating to meet every need
ModCloth, 9/6 – At home, but make it fashion.
Nordstrom, 9/10 – Fall’s top five pieces
DICK’S Sporting Goods, 9/24 – Cool-Weather Essentials 🍁 + Up to 50% Off This Week’s Deals
Target, 9/5 – Cozy season is just around the corner…
Target, 9/14 – Garden-less greens: a fresh look without the fuss 🌿
VS PINK, 9/13 – 🍑 perfect Seamless is always IN!
Gap, 9/19 – Try our Untucked Shirt. Never go back
Gap, 9/10 – Wearing a bra never felt more comfortable
ModCloth, 9/14 – Feminist finds that are one-of-a-kind.
Zales, 9/13 – Saying Thank You Makes The World A Better Place
Home Depot, 9/29 — S•U•P•E•R • S•A•V•I•N•G•S
Omaha Steaks, 9/15 – This $25 E-Reward Card is yours, Chad!
Eddie Bauer, 9/16 – Eddie Bauer x Sub Pop Limited-Edition Flannel
Foot Locker, 9/1 – This is COLLABORAID. Dropping soon.
West Elm, 9/19 – Inside: Our free Design Crew transformed this NYC apartment
Michaels, 9/30 – What will you create for this week’s art prompt?
Petco Foundation, 9/9 – Has your adopted pet changed your life?
New posts on EmailMarketingRules.com
Understanding Email Click Rates
Litmus’s Delivering Podcast: Seeing Into the Future With Oracle’s Chad S. White
How 5G Wireless Will Impact Marketers
Understanding Email Open Rates
On-Demand Webinar: The Most Critical Email Deliverability Questions
ZeroBounce: Focus on Managing Subscribers, Not Campaigns
Posted on October 1, 2020
I recently joined Corina Leslie for an interview on the ZeroBounce Blog. We talked about everything from how to learn more about email marketing to the biggest mistakes email marketers make to what to keep in mind this holiday season. For instance, Corina asked…
- How did you get into email marketing?
- How did you learn so much about email? What or who do you credit as your best sources?
- I know you wrote a whole book on the topic, but what’s your no. 1 email marketing rule?
- What are some of the biggest mistakes you see email marketers making?
- What’s the first thing you say to someone who complains about low open rates?
- Please give us one thing anyone can do today to improve their email marketing performance.
- With the holiday season coming up, what are some of the things senders should keep in mind?
- What is something you never get tired of talking about?
For all of answers to those questions and more…
>> Read the interview on the ZeroBounce Blog
Understanding Email Click Rates
Posted on September 30, 2020
Marketing metrics are just numbers. Without the proper understanding and context, you can’t turn these numbers into the valuable insights you need to make better tactical and strategic decisions.
In this series of posts, we’ll look at a variety of marketing metrics, discussing how to measure each one, how to use each one, and how to benchmark your performance. In this post, we’re examining email click rates. We’ll explain:
- How Click Rates Are Measured
- How to Best to Use Click Rates
- What Is a Good Click Rate
For a detailed look at each of those issues…
>> Read the full post on Oracle’s Modern Marketing Blog
Litmus’s Delivering Podcast: Seeing Into the Future With Oracle’s Chad S. White
Posted on September 25, 2020
After a sobering spring, the 2020 holiday season is looking like it may be one of the riskiest and challenging in decades. That’s the focus of episode #28 of the Delivering podcast, where Litmus’s Jason Rodriguez and I talk about:
- The most beneficial lesson to come out of 2020
- The pressures on email programs to be lean and efficient
- The long list of major challenges around this holiday season
- Whether leaning on plain-text designs can help with holiday email production pressures
- How to “par bake” your holiday campaigns to accelerate development
- How the Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday holiday weekend is likely to go this year
- The need to stand out in the inbox during the highest volume days
- Two secret weapons to help brands stay relevant during the holidays
- How to make your automated emails more effective during November and December
- What should marketers focus on in a post-COVID world
- Where are email budgets and headcounts headed
- The kinds of email tactics that marketers are largely avoiding currently
- The upcoming release of our fourth quarter Holiday Marketing Quarterly checklist
For a discussion of each of these issues…
>> Listen to the Delivering podcast on the Litmus blog
P.S. This is my second time on the podcast. My first was for Episode #3 of Delivering when our discussion was entered on email analytics and asking the right questions.
How 5G Wireless Will Impact Marketers
Posted on September 22, 2020
When 5G wireless networks and devices start to take hold later this year, they will fundamentally change consumer behavior and open up new marketing opportunities for companies, as well as new pitfalls. It’s a game-changer because 5G wireless is roughly 10 times faster than today’s 4G networks and provides much more accurate location information. Just like the arrival of 4G made it possible for services like Uber and Lyft to launch, 5G will be the catalyst for a new wave of tech giants.
In this post from Oracle CX Marketing Consulting’s Jonathan McClure, he discusses how 5G wireless will change consumer behavior and then how marketers will need to adapt. He recommends that marketers focus on:
- Adding more video
- Building richer website designs
- Creating richer email designs
- Taking advantage of more precise location-triggered messaging
- Explore the mainstreaming of VR and AR
- Tightening up omnichannel orchestration
- Adapting to increasing privacy concerns and controls
For all the details about how 5G wireless will impact businesses…
>> Read the entire post on Oracle’s Modern Marketing Blog
Litmus Live Week: The Factors that Affect Email Deliverability
Posted on September 21, 2020
Inbox placement often feels like it’s out of marketers’ hands. However, the truth is that businesses have a tremendous amount of control as to whether inbox providers view their emails as safe or spam. That was the overarching message of my presentation at Litmus Live Week last week.
To help empower marketers to take full ownership of their deliverability, I discussed the seven factors that affect sender reputations and detailed exactly what is included in each factor. Because email marketing is constantly evolving, I also pointed out how each of the factors has changed over the years and debunked some myths about deliverability.
Litmus has now made the on-demand recordings of 60 Litmus Live Week session available for free viewing, including my own session on email deliverability. Check out my session, which begins at the 5:36 mark, to gain a clear understanding of exactly what actions to take and which to avoid in order to have your emails reach your subscribers’ inboxes more consistently.
>> Watch the on-demand recording
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
