Email Marketing RulesTrends in Using Email Marketing to Amplify Content Marketing
Posted on June 25, 2019
As a 13-year veteran of content marketing, I’m biased, but I think it’s fair to say that content marketing is a powerful way to:
- Demonstrate that your company is composed of experts in their field
- Start, shape, and contribute to valuable and important industry conversations
- Help your customers maximize their positive outcomes and avoid negative ones
- Attract and engage prospects and familiarize them with your brand
As great as content marketing is, a “build it and they will come” philosophy only gets you so far nowadays…and that’s where email marketing comes in.
Email marketing helps get your content in front of more people—specifically, your most loyal customers and most interested prospects. But email is about so much more than just content amplification. Here are some ways that email marketing makes your content marketing work harder for you…
>> Read the full post on Oracle’s Modern Marketing Blog
On-Demand Webinar: Poor Email Performance Visibility – You Can’t Fix What You Can’t See
Posted on June 18, 2019
Email marketing programs are complex three-dimensional objects. If you don’t look at them from all angles and shine a light into the nooks, you simply can’t see it all. And if you can’t fully see it, you have little hope of fully understanding it, much less optimizing and mastering it.
Unfortunately, there’s significant evidence that many brands have poor visibility into their email performance. That’s jeopardizing both customer experiences and email profitability for those brands.
In this on-demand webinar, we discuss how poor performance visibility is affecting email marketing quality assurance, return on investment, and deliverability. Along the way, we share research as well as advice from a few of the more than 500 consultants at Oracle Marketing Cloud Consulting—including our Senior Director of QA and Campaign Services, Simone Edmonds; Senior Strategic Consultant for Deliverability Services, Kent McGovern; and Director of Strategic Services, Kaiti Livermore. Break the cycle of your email marketing status quo.
>> Watch the free on-demand webinar
The Last Word on May 2019
Posted on June 4, 2019
A roundup of email marketing articles, posts, and tweets you might have missed last month…
Must-read articles, posts & reports
When It’s Time to Let Go: 5 Tactics to Improve the Unsubscribe Experience (Litmus)
Do recent changes in the ESP landscape benefit clients? IBM, Epsilon, Yes Marketing (Email Vendor Selection)
What brands can learn from a year of GDPR in preparing for the California Consumer Privacy Act (MarketingDive)
The Cookie Crumbles: Google Announces Privacy Controls (Wayin)
Insightful & entertaining tweets
Email is like life. No matter how experienced you are at it, it still has the potential to surprise you! #EmailMarketing #EmailDesign #EmailDevelopment #EmailGeeks
— Beyond the Envelope™ (@Paul_Airy) May 2, 2019
If you’re sending messages from a financial institution, you shouldn’t EVER be failing authentication. ESPECIALLY if you’re asking recipients TO CLICK A LINK.
— Mickey Chandler (@mickc_pro) May 3, 2019
“I want to break up”
“OK, but do you want to get back together” pic.twitter.com/PKbymsELMP— Kristina Halvorson (@halvorson) May 7, 2019
Marketers are changing. Students majoring in #marketing are now learning technical skills as well including #coding. The “Marketechers” as @IBMWatson’s @LorenMcDonald calls them, are the #futureofmarketing work. @TiEcon #FutureofWork pic.twitter.com/d3TVDrWm0x
— Localized (@Localizedworld) May 10, 2019
🖐Tips for Writing Alt Text:
1️⃣Use different alt text for each image
2️⃣Be descriptive but watch the length
3️⃣Don’t use title text as alt text
4️⃣Use empty alt text for design elements
5️⃣ Style alt text for users with blocked images#emailaccessibility #emaildesign #emailmarketing pic.twitter.com/UkwqXX1YCA— Email on Acid (@EmailonAcid) May 20, 2019
Noteworthy subject lines
Monterey Bay Aquarium, 5/23 – Summer is coming
Burlington, 5/1 – Give Mom what she really wants
Belk, 5/1 – Spoil Mom, Spoil YOU: Up to 70% Off
Barneys New York, 5/5 – 12 Gift Ideas For Mother’s Day
Clinique, 5/5 – Make sure Mom’s gifts arrive on time.
Ann Taylor, 5/12 – Final Hours For Our Mother’s Day Event!
Neiman Marcus, 5/19 – Dolce & Gabbana for you & your mini
ThinkGeek, 5/4 – May the Fourth Be With You (and this Coupon Code)
FansEdge, 5/4 – May The Fourth Be With You
Chico’s, 5/5 – Cinco DEAL Mayo: Final Deal
J.Crew, 5/30 – We’re bursting with pride
Fossil, 5/30 – Ace Grad Gifting
JCPenney, 5/29 – Dip your toes in…$5 flip flops!
Banana Republic, 5/26 – Summer starts now. Wear linen.
Hayneedle, 5/19 – The seagulls are impressed. Gorgeous coastal-style rooms.
MAC Cosmetics, 5/13 – The Disney Aladdin Collection by M•A•C is Going Fast!
Saks Fifth Avenue, 5/7 – These Met Gala-inspired pieces are pink carpet-approved…
Express, 5/1 – The May Edit: Rent this month’s top trending styles
Ann Taylor, 5/10 – 40% Off This Season’s Must-Have Hue
Sears, 5/5 – Please share! Extra 10-20% off + $60 CASHBACK in points
UncommonGoods, 5/15 – Up to 70% Off (still 100% Uncommon)
Applebee’s, 5/4 – Teachers + Applebee’s = Free Appetizer
Moosejaw, 5/23 – Limited Edition Collection — Moosejaw x Great Lakes Proud
MAC Cosmetics, 5/19 – Four Formulas to Master Your Ultimate Matte Lip!
Epicurious, 5/29 – Stop crying over chopped onions!
Jos. A. Bank, 5/16 – Maintain your Body’s Optimum Microclimate with Travel Tech
ModCloth, 5/3 – Add a little “je ne sais quoi” to your wardrobe.
ThinkGeek, 5/13 – Pika Pika?
Sony Electronics, 5/13 – Our Speaker is Famous | The XB41 is in a New Music Video
Feeding America, 5/22 – Endless summer… for all the wrong reasons
New posts on EmailMarketingRules.com
SEMrush’s Marketing Scoop Podcast: What Works Best for Email Marketing Now?
2-Year Anniversary of the 3rd Edition of “Email Marketing Rules”
How to Use AI Subject Line and Copywriting Tools Successfully
Litmus’s Delivering Podcast: Asking the Right Questions
The Rise of Exploitive Email Click Bots
SEMrush’s Marketing Scoop Podcast: What Works Best for Email Marketing Now?
Posted on May 30, 2019
How can content marketing and email marketing work together? That was the central question that AWeber’s Jill Fanslau and I tried to answer when we appeared on the Season 2, Episode 33 of SEMrush’s Marketing Scoop podcast.
During the episode, we talked about:
- What’s changed in email marketing over the past few years
- How email marketing’s ROI is a double-edged sword, that both helps and hurts marketers
- How brands should adjust to GDPR and why the law is good for brands
- Why list purchases are a no-no and the confusion around list purchases and rentals
- List building across channels
- The role of subject lines and the right victory metrics to use for subject line A/B testing
- How it’s not email versus other channels and rather about email working with all your other channels and vice versa
- And much more
Listen to the episode of Marketing Scoop wherever you get your podcasts or…
>> Listen to the podcast online
2-Year Anniversary of the 3rd Edition of “Email Marketing Rules”
Posted on May 29, 2019
Two years ago today, the 3rd Edition of “Email Marketing Rules” was published. Weighing in at 467 pages, many consider it the most comprehensive books on email marketing ever. I’ve been exceedingly proud that I’ve been able to provide marketers with a source of trusted advice on this critical marketing channel.
96% of reviewers have given “Email Marketing Rules” 5 stars on Amazon.com. If you’re one of the email geeks who has reviewed it, I thank you from the bottom of my heart!
Because it has been so well received, BookAuthority has named it one of the best Digital Marketing books of all time. It’s currently at No. 10, putting it in the company of David Meerman Scott’s “The New Rules of Marketing & PR” and Kyle Gray’s “The Story Engine.” That’s amazing!
Thanks again to everyone for your support. I feel exceedingly lucky to have stumbled—like so many of you—into this powerful and dynamic industry.
>> Find “Email Marketing Rules” on Amazon.com
How to Use AI Subject Line and Copywriting Tools Successfully
Posted on May 28, 2019
Brands are turning to AI and machine learning to answer extremely complex questions, including, “What words should I use to communicate most effectively?” Companies like Persado, Phrasee, Touchstone, and others have turned AI’s data-crunching and pattern-finding power onto email subject lines, as well as other marketing copy.
Oracle Marketing Cloud Consulting has seen high interest in these tools among our clients. However, when our clients have tried them, the results have been mixed.
Among those brands that didn’t find enough success, the most common complaints that we’ve heard are that:
- The lift in email performance wasn’t sustainable beyond a few months,
and that - The results in general didn’t justify the expense.
If you’re considering these tools, we have some advice to get you on the path to success.
>> Read the full post on Oracle’s Modern Marketing Blog
Litmus’s Delivering Podcast: Asking the Right Questions
Posted on May 17, 2019
Email analytics are pivotal to achieving marketing success, but many marketers misunderstand what the numbers are telling them or set the wrong goals.
In episode 3 of Delivering podcast, Litmus’s Jason Rodriguez and I talk about:
- Where brands go wrong with email analytics
- The most commonly misunderstood metrics
- The right email metrics to focus your attention on
- How an email brief can keep your campaign success metrics aligned
- Where the gaps are in email performance visibility and how to try to close those gaps
- How the desiloing of email marketing is driving the need for more cross-channel visibility
- Cost-mindsets versus growth-mindsets
- Why maximizing email marketing’s ROI isn’t the end goal
For a discussion of each of these issues…
>> Listen to the Delivering podcast on the Litmus blog
The Rise of Exploitive Email Click Bots
Posted on May 14, 2019
Bots are having a profound effect on how the internet functions and may even outnumber people on some platforms like Twitter. Email marketing is not immune to click bots, with the newest activity being from bots that mimic human subscribers in order to collect information to power data service businesses.
The problem with these kinds of email click bots is that they create activity that inflates performance numbers and causes false positives that trigger automated campaigns and muddy targeting efforts. All in all, they simply make it more difficult to see how subscribers are truly responding. That can cause brands to make tactical or strategic changes that serve bots rather than actual subscribers.
Oracle’s Heather Goff, Bradford Johnson, Dan Deneweth, Wade Hobbs, Kent McGovern and I explore these bots in more detail, but let’s do so in the broader context of all email click bots. We think of these bots as falling into three categories, with each one requiring its own potential remedies:
- Beneficial Email Click Bots
- Malicious Email Click Bots
- Exploitive Email Click Bots
For full discussion of each of these kinds of bots and advice on how to respond to them…
>> Read the full post on Oracle’s Modern Marketing blog
The Latest B2B Email Marketing Trends
Posted on May 7, 2019
At the same time that email marketing is becoming more complex, all of the issues surrounding it are becoming more interconnected. That is strikingly apparent when looking at the latest B2B email marketing trends identified by members of Oracle Marketing Cloud Consulting’s Expert Services team, which assist Eloqua customers with all aspects of their email programs.
Oracle’s Autumn Coleman, Kim Roman, Cristal Foster, Chris Carlock, Fabricio J. Lopez, and Otilia Antipa talk about this interconnected chain of current B2B email marketing trends, which includes:
- Compliance Automation
- More Active Management of Inactives
- Stronger Opt-ins
- Growing Adoption of Preference Centers
- Hyper-Personalization
- Send Time Optimization
- Smart Trigger Timing
- AI Helps Do It All Better
- Data Warehouse Integrations
- Embracing B2C Strategies & Tools
For a discussion of each of these B2B email marketing trends…
>> Read the full post on Oracle’s Modern Marketing Blog
The Last Word on April 2019
Posted on May 3, 2019
A roundup of email marketing articles, posts, and tweets you might have missed last month…
Must-read articles, posts & reports
13 Email Marketing Statistics That Are Shaping 2019 and Beyond (Convince & Convert)
Email Marketing Budget Changes in 2019: Where Email Teams Invest More—And Where They Cut Back (Litmus)
Insightful & entertaining tweets
Beautiful take on what #GDPR represents:
“We’re giving people more autonomy over data and empowering subscribers to make relationships more meaningful and effective.” –@logansandrock at #UNSPAM
— Kait Creamer (@KaitCreamer) April 7, 2019
The fold is real.
The rationale that you should cram everything above it isn’t. #emailgeeks #embracethescroll
— Elliot Ross (@iamelliot) April 8, 2019
Every week I receive a dozen or more “personalized” emails with the subject line “%PROSPECT_NAME%%, connect on %%DATE%%”
Using my first name and a date **does not** qualify as personalization. That’s a data merge. 🙄 pic.twitter.com/nXqcrb5hQT
— Justine Jordan (@meladorri) April 15, 2019
Every time I hear someone correctly say “calls to action” rather than “call to actions”, my capacity for feeling joy and hope grows.
— Kait Creamer (@KaitCreamer) April 24, 2019
Email marketing is “slow-cial media,” the original networking space. @annhandley #SMMW19
— Clare (@clareyfrey) March 22, 2019
Noteworthy subject lines
Petco, 4/1 – New at Petco: pet wedding planning
Walmart, 4/19 – 15 Mother’s Day gifts that last longer than flowers
Neiman Marcus, 4/19 – Louis Vuitton: Show your love this Mother’s Day
Banana Republic, 4/25 – Our Mother’s Day gift guide to fuel your Mom’s wanderlust
Zales, 4/25 – Disney Obsessed Mom?
Saks Fifth Avenue, 4/26 – Actress & author Bridget Moynahan’s top gifts for every Mom
J.Crew, 4/29 – New picks for you (and for Mom too)
Hobby Lobby, 4/4 – Need Easter Basket Ideas? 40% Off Summer Toys!
LifeWay Christian Stores, 4/6 – Heading to an Easter Celebration? Don’t Forget a Gift!
Tractor Supply Company, 4/10 – Everything You Need to Get Ready For Spring – Shop Now!
Hayneedle, 4/29 – Cookout season is coming – let’s prep!
Barneys New York, 4/7 – How to Take Festival Style to The Next Level
Nordstrom, 4/19 – Sandals for all your sunny-weather plans
West Elm, 4/6 – Looking for a small space dining table? You NEED this.
Applebee’s, 4/25 – Chad, Do you have plans for dinner?
Neiman Marcus, 4/3 – New shoes channel retro glam
Victoria’s Secret, 4/4 – No seams. No limits.
Target, 4/26 – Preview the vineyard vines for Target collection, arriving 5/18
Kohl’s, 4/4 – 20% off + $5 + Kohl’s Cash = (sorry, too busy shopping to do math)
Gap, 4/23 – Pick a number between 40 and 70 (hint: savings involved)
Petco, 4/11 – Enter for a chance to win a year’s supply of pet food!**
J.Crew, 4/15 – TBH you’d be crazy to miss this 24-hour sale
Victoria’s Secret, 4/12 – All about that sets appeal…
Feeding America, 4/23 – This does not belong in the trash
Harley-Davidson, 4/15 – The Builders Behind The Bikes + Snag Your H-D Extreme Cooler Tote
REI, 4/19 – Customer Tested. BACKPACKER Approved.
Southwest, 4/23 – Your post-worthy paradise is on sale.
New posts on EmailMarketingRules.com
The Pros and Cons of AMP for Email
When Retina Images Should Be Used in Emails and When They Shouldn’t
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
