Email Marketing RulesDigital Marketing in 2030: Major Changes & How to Adapt [with on-demand webinar]
Posted on June 26, 2024
Big changes are coming over the next several years that will affect how digital marketers connect with and build strong relationships with their customers and prospects. Generative AI will be a huge driver of these changes, creating both massive opportunities and massive disruptions to the status quo.
We see these changes as falling into three major buckets:
- Shifts in the Media Landscape, where some digital channels will see declining use by consumers and brands, while other channels see growth and become increasingly important
- Shifts in the Regulatory & Platform Landscape, where privacy and other restrictions imposed by state and federal laws and by digital platform providers (e.g., Apple, Google, Yahoo) will complicate audience tracking efforts, but build consumer trust by reducing privacy abuses
- Shifts in the Operational & Technological Landscape, where strategic choices and tech stack decisions either complicate or ease the efforts of brands to adapt to current and new challenges
Leadership & Fatherhood: An Inspiring Father’s Day Tribute
Posted on June 17, 2024
As a father of three boys (12, 15, and 27), including one with special needs, fatherhood has been a defining influence on my life. So, I am thrilled to join some of the dads at Stripo in sharing how being a parent has influenced my leadership style.
For me, being a dad and a primary caregiver has helped me develop three skills that might have otherwise taken me longer. For instance, I’ve learned to prioritize. I can’t always do everything that’s asked of me, or that I’d like to do. Not being able to do it all helps me decide what’s really important.
It’s also made me a better communicator. Short, clear requests and instructions lead to less confusion and better outcomes. That’s a learning that carries over nicely to email marketing, too.
And lastly, being a dad has made me more flexible and empathetic. Even with solid, way-in-advance planning, sometimes things go sideways. Life happens. It happens to me, it happens to my colleagues, and it happens to my industry friends. We have an unofficial motto in our family: Don’t make it worse. When others are struggling and I can’t directly help, I try to do my best to adapt, go with the flow, and not make the situation more difficult for them. How can we pivot, adapt, delay, or reduce the expectations around what we’re working on? Sometimes the goal becomes just to get through.
For all the great, heartfelt advice on the intersection of parenthood and leadership…
Things I’ve Read about Email Marketing that Are Simply Wrong
Posted on June 14, 2024
The web has always been a dicey place to get email marketing advice. Too many people incorrectly think that email marketing hasn’t changed much over the years, so outdated information tends to get recirculated over and over and over.
Based on the rise in factual inaccuracies I’ve been seeing in recent months, I think generative AI may be making this problem worse. That’s because LLMs are trained on this outdated information and it appears some folks are using GenAI to provide background for their articles.
Rather than share all of the inaccurate and confusing statements I’ve seen lately (and potentially reinforce that bad information in future training for generative AI models), I’ll focus on the truth of how email marketing works.
What Email Marketers Should Be Upset About
Posted on June 10, 2024
There’s no shortage of things in email marketing to be irritated about. The lack of email coding standards, the inconsistent email rendering, the partial support for CSS-based interactivity, the partial support of AMP for email, inconsistent implementations of dark mode, how expensive BIMI VMCs are,… Marketers have also been perpetually frustrated by the big differences between spam filtering algorithms at the major inbox providers—although Google and Yahoo recently agreed on deliverability standards, and Microsoft is considering signing on as well. So, that’s a huge win for email marketers.
While all of those things are frustrating, there aren’t many things to be truly upset about. After all, email marketing allows massive audience reach, enjoys unrivaled consumer acceptance, supports rich and personalized messaging, and generates an incredibly strong return on investment, particularly when compared to other channels.
While there aren’t many things to be upset about, there are a few. Please indulge my rant.
The Last Word on May 2024
Posted on June 7, 2024
A roundup of digital and email marketing articles, posts, and social buzz you might have missed last month…
Must-read articles, posts & reports
RGE’s Dark Mode Collection (Really Good Emails)
Accessibility Report 2024 (Email Markup Consortium)
We Test Everything: Long vs. Short Copy (Alchemy Worx)
Gmail App on Android Can Soon Summarize Your Emails (SamMobile)
Welcome to the AI Dystopia No One Asked for, Courtesy of Silicon Valley (CNN)
Google’s Broken Link to the Web (Platformer)
Insightful & entertaining social posts
Did you know, if Princess Leia had just emailed the Death Star plans, that movie would have been over in 10 minutes?
Happy Star Wars Day!
May the Fourth be with you! pic.twitter.com/h1Vd11QHNd— Shawn Sutherland, 4X SF Cert, 1X Ranger (@DataMedicine) May 5, 2024
Bad developer! No, no! We don’t force light mode on the subscriber…. Ever. Dark mode in email is not an inconvenience – it’s your job. #emailgeeks #emaildarkmode #darkmode #emailpeeps #emaildeveloper #htmlemail #emailcode #dontdothis #itsyourjob pic.twitter.com/Se9izp7GoR
— Anne Tomlin (@pompeii79) May 17, 2024
Noteworthy subject lines
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 5/3 – May Events
Michaels, 5/2 – Make Mom something special (start now before it’s too late)! ⏳
Macy’s, 5/12 – Still need a gift for Mom? Hurry, extra 25% off ends tonight
Fanatics.com, 5/12 – From Diapers to the Dugouts >> Happy Mother’s Day!
kate spade Outlet, 5/3 – One for mom, one for… you!
IKEA Family, 5/9 – ⏰ Hurry! Exclusive 15% off for first 10,000 students! 🎓
Olive Garden, 5/28 – Graduation time?
YETI, 5/12 – Free Father’s Day Custom
Big Lots, 5/22 – Memorial Day Sale PLUS 20% Off $100+ on patio!
HP.com, 5/27 – On this day, we remember
Eddie Bauer, 5/22 – 50% Off Summer Hiking Faves 🥾🌲☀️ Exclusions Apply
Levi’s®, 5/13 – Sun’s out, Levi’s® on ☀️
Moosejaw, 5/22 – It’s beach time. Grab some new swimwear and gear and get going.
Chubbies, 5/13 – Welcome to the Swim Truck Hall of Fame
Eddie Bauer, 5/25 – Get Summer-Ready With Our UPF Collection ☀️🌊
Columbia, 5/23 – Your summer gear checklist is here.✔️✔️
J.Crew, 5/23 – White denim, just $85, today only! We never do this…
HP.com, 5/28 – Reliable. Recyclable. Responsible. Original HP Ink
Williams Sonoma, 5/12 – Discover the retro-inspired designs of SMEG Dolce & Gabbana Blu Mediterraneo Collection
Zara, 5/13 – New Romantic: Massimo Dutti collection
FIGS, 5/28 – First Ever ScrubSmock™
Neiman Marcus, 5/23 – Etro’s latest dress in full color. Take a peek
Magic: The Gathering, 5/28 – 💥You’ve got a preview card!💥
Goldbelly, 5/28 – 🍑Georgia Peach Season is Here!🍑
Spirit Halloween, 5/15 – 💚🖤 Say it three times 💚🖤
Peloton, 5/12 – Train your body to become more efficient at burning calories
Art.com, 5/19 – 🤷🏻♀️ Don’t know which frame to choose?
Everlane, 5/3 – We Saw You in the Comments
REI, 5/13 – See what gear won our Editors’ Choice Awards
Bass Pro Shops, 5/12 – A message from our friend, Eva Shockey!
New posts on EmailMarketingRules.com
Digital Marketing Domination podcast: Optimizing Email Campaigns
Email Annotations & Schema: ‘Automatic Extraction’ & Controlling Your Preview Content
Voice Assistants Reading Emails: How to Create Voice-Friendly Campaigns
Pressure Builds for New US Privacy Law as State Laws Pile Up
The Right Success Metrics? Depends on Your Email Marketing Business Model
Evolving Your Account-Based Marketing Program [with on-demand webinar]
Posted on June 3, 2024
Account-based marketing (ABM) is a marketing and sales approach that focuses on a small number of high-value accounts rather than trying to market to a huge number of potential customers across an entire industry. With this focus, brands then send these accounts highly tailored marketing content and sales outreach to close the initial sale and then grow the account.
Because of that, the best candidates for ABM are brands:
- With sales organizations
- With a limited market and relatively small potential customer count
- Who sell products or services where several stakeholders are involved in the buying decisions
- Who have large average deal sizes and long sales cycles
- Who have opportunities to cross- and up-sell their existing customers
These requirements have made account-based marketing a long-time favorite of many B2B brands, as well as some B2C brands who want to serve their high-value customers better through concierge marketing. However, what has worked for ABM programs in the past isn’t necessarily working today. Businesses and technology have evolved in recent years, so account-based marketing practices need to evolve as well.
In the accompanying 47-minute on-demand webinar, we discuss account-based marketing’s evolution, the functionality you need to do ABM effectively, and share some case studies from Eloqua clients who are doing ABM successfully. However, in the remainder of this post, we highlight major steps in ABM’s progression, including what’s driving the future of ABM.
>> Read the entire post on Oracle’s Marketing Marketing Blog
Digital Marketing Domination podcast: Optimizing Email Campaigns
Posted on May 24, 2024
What’s a good open rate? A good click rate? What metrics should businesses be focusing on? And how can they increase them?
I join Digital Marketing Domination podcast host Jamil Zabaneh to talk about how businesses can optimize their email marketing results, and much more. Here’s a rundown of our conversation during the 24-minute podcast:
2:28 – What metrics should email marketers be looking at?
4:50 – The 4 different email marketing program business models
7:23 – Some of the important KPIs for a lead-driven email marketing program
9:05 – How often should you email your subscribers?
10:15 – How much is too much in terms of email frequency?
11:25 – What’s a good email engagement rate?
13:40 – A/B testing philosophies and where to focus your tests
16:46 – The importance of integrating email marketing with other marketing channels
21:10 – The Rule of 7 and building a critical mass of messaging across channels
22:42 – The need to stay active and engaged in the email marketing community
Listen wherever you get your podcasts or…
>> Listen to the Digital Marketing Domination podcast online
Email Annotations & Schema: ‘Automatic Extraction’ & Controlling Your Preview Content
Posted on May 22, 2024
To help users get answers quickly, search engine providers display Featured Snippets and other summaries that increase the chance a user won’t actually have to click any of the search results. Google and Yahoo are extending this same philosophy to their email inbox services by occasionally adding previews to commercial emails.
Gmail calls this “Automatic Extraction.” Both Gmail and Yahoo uses artificial intelligence to scan promotional emails and identify:
- Key images
- Discounts
- Discount expiration dates
- And other promotional content elements
They then use that information to either replace a commercial sender’s preview text with their own clickable preview content or add a clickable preview module above the body copy of an email. In both cases, the clicks on that inbox provider–created content diverts subscribers to the sender’s website.
Currently, Automatic Extraction is causing three major problems for brands.
Voice Assistants Reading Emails: How to Create Voice-Friendly Campaigns
Posted on May 13, 2024
Accessibility and inclusive design have become major digital marketing design trends as brands recognize the need to be more welcoming and considerate of consumers with a wider range of needs. Making email campaigns more voice-friendly is one element of this effort. However, it’s not without some contradictions and compromises.
Let’s look at why, and how marketers can best adapt.
Pressure Builds for New US Privacy Law as State Laws Pile Up
Posted on May 8, 2024
Momentum toward a new comprehensive US privacy law started with the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), which passed in 2018 and went into effect in 2020. Since it was signed into law, more than a dozen other states have passed their own privacy laws to enhance consumer privacy rights, regulate the collection and use of personal information by businesses, and establish mechanisms for enforcement and compliance.
Costs and complexities of complying with the patchwork of state privacy laws is creating headaches for regional, national and international organizations. Because of that increasing frustration among businesses, Congress has finally felt the pressure to act. Last month, it introduced the bipartisan American Privacy Rights Act (APRA).
While that bill winds its way through Congress, facing revisions and uncertain passage, marketers must comply with an ever-growing list of state-level privacy laws from California, Texas, Florida, New Jersey, Virginia, Colorado, Tennessee, Indiana, Colorado, and others.
In this post, Oracle Digital Experience Agency’s Brian Sullivan discusses how marketers can adapt to these laws, but first he talks about what these laws currently require.
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
