Email Marketing Rules30 Must-Subscribe Brands
Posted on September 21, 2016
Which brands do you think have the most inspiring email marketing programs? We asked more than 900 email marketers that question and then shared their top 25 must-subscribe brands in our 2016 State of Email Design report.
We also did video interviews with four speakers from The Email Design Conference, asking them to pick their must-subscribe brands and explain why. They named five more brands—bring our total to 30—and there were some clear themes around these brands doing personalization and interactivity really well.
To watch the video and see the list of must-subscribe brands…
>> Read the full post on the Litmus blog
Infographic: Many Email Marketing Mistakes Going Undetected
Posted on September 20, 2016
Our 2016 State of Email Production report found that 31.6% of marketers hadn’t halted a single email send in the past 12 months and that 49.4% hadn’t sent a single apology or correction email. At first, we were very impressed by these brands.
However, as we dug into the data, we became increasingly concerned. That’s because the marketers who weren’t halting or sending apologies appear to be significantly less sophisticated and fewer safeguards in place than marketers who were halting sends and sending apologies.
Our conclusion? Most marketers are making apology-worthy mistakes. But only half of them are aware of the mistakes they’re making.
In this infographic, we explore this issue and offer seven tips on how you can improve your visibility of email marketing mistakes.
>> View the infographic on the Litmus blog
Why You Shouldn’t Use Opens to Gauge Subject Line Success
Posted on September 16, 2016
Marketers understand that subject lines are incredibly important to the success of an email marketing program. However, what many marketers don’t understand is how to determine whether a subject line is successful or not.
You’ve probably heard people say that the goal of subject lines is to get opens; that the goal of an email’s body copy is to get clicks; and that the goal a landing page is to get conversions. That sounds really reasonable, but it’s misleading.
This kind of thinking leads marketers to believe that a higher open rate is better because it means they’ve opened the top of their funnel up wider and more people have seen their email’s message. And if more people enter the top of their funnel, then they have more opportunities to convince those people to take action. So they write subject lines with the aim of attracting as many openers as possible—often using vague, overly familiar, or even misleading subject lines to accomplish that.
But that’s an overly simplified view of how audiences work. It assumes that all opens are equal—and they’re not.
>>Read the entire post on the Litmus blog
Report: 2016 State of Email Design
Posted on September 8, 2016
Designing an email isn’t like designing a webpage or print piece. There are both limitations and opportunities around what you can do with email design, and it’s up to email designers and coders to master both of those.
In the inaugural State of Email Design report, which is based on the responses of more than 900 marketers, we take a detailed look at how marketers:
- Search for email inspiration
- Use brand guidelines
- Approach email design
- Use various design elements
- Use one-off email designs
- A/B test their emails
- Handle email redesigns
- Manage landing page responsibilities
Use the results in this report to benchmark your own email designs and design processes, to identify opportunities where you can improve, and as evidence to argue for the need to try out new email marketing tactics and strategies.
>> Download the free report
The (Largely Invisible) Key to Holiday Email Marketing Success
Posted on September 7, 2016
Most retailers are in serious planning mode for their holiday season promotional campaigns. We’ll start to see a sprinkling of holiday email marketing campaigns in the weeks ahead—and then holiday messaging will get going in earnest on Halloween and the days following.
In light of the planning that’s currently going on, Vaida Pakulyte of Strands asked me and five other experts for our best advice for retailers starting to create their holiday season campaigns. Here’s my advice:
Retailers that keep their messaging clear and compelling will do very well this holiday season. Simplicity wins when it comes to holiday broadcast messaging.
But increasingly, the biggest winners are determined by which brands have the best triggered emails–especially browse and cart abandonment emails. Targeting subscribers who browse without purchasing and add products to their cart without purchasing, respectively, these emails are incredibly effective at generating conversions.
Going into the holiday season, I highly recommend that you launch even simple versions of these emails, if you don’t currently have them. And if you’re already created these emails, then:
- Test them to make sure they still render and function as intended
- Look for opportunities to improve them through A/B testing between now and the end of October
- Consider adding seasonal imagery and messaging to make them more relevant to holiday shoppers
- Consider setting these emails to launch more quickly after abandonment since purchase consideration cycles are much faster during the holiday season
>> Read all the advice on the Strands blog
The Deeper Meaning Behind 5 Email Marketing Soundbites
Posted on September 6, 2016
While at The Email Design Conference in Boston a few weeks ago, I tweeted a lot of great email marketing soundbites from the sessions, and saw a bunch of great ones from the sessions in the track I wasn’t in. Twitter is fantastic at delivering soundbites like these, but it’s horrible at conveying the larger context and details orbiting around these soundbites.
In my latest Marketing Land column, I discuss the deeper meaning behind the following quotes from The Email Design Conference:
“The time when emails had to be pixel-perfect is way behind us.” —Eric Lepetit, Email Lead Engineer, Manager, Nest (@ericlepetitsf)
“I want to do business with a company that treats emailing me as a privilege, not a transaction.” —Andrea Mignolo, Head of Design & UX, Movable Ink (@pnts)
“An Amazon email in your inbox should feel like an Amazon box on your doorstep.” —Vicky Ge, Product Manager II, Email Automation and Outbound Marketing Systems, Amazon (@vickymakesstuff)
“The right button isn’t what’s popular. It’s what’s tested.” —Mike Nelson, Co-founder, Really Good Emails (@mevlow)
“F#@&ups are learning opportunities.” —Russell Patton, Senior Email Deployment Specialist, Archer>Malmo
For a dive into the greater meaning behind these email marketing soundbites…
>> Read my full column on MarketingLand.com
The Last Word on August 2016
Posted on September 1, 2016
A roundup of email marketing articles, posts, and tweets you might have missed last month…
Must-read articles, posts & reports
Everything You Wanted to Know About Email CTA Buttons (Really Good Emails)
Simple email subject lines are failing to engage consumers: stats (Econsultancy)
Teaching the Email Marketer How to Fish (Adobe)
An Alternative Theory (Rebelmail)
Engagement Rate Heralds Next Era Of Email Metrics (MediaPost)
Millennials + Email: How to Engage Email Natives (BrightWave)
Interview: Litmus CEO Paul Farnell on Microsoft partnership (EmailMarketingWeb)
Insightful & entertaining tweets
@remybergsma: @litmusapp @kenburbary with Delta Airlines outage, people interviewed said ‘I didn’t receive an email with the news!’ Nuff said. #adobechat
@iamelliot: 9 times out of 10, the solution to any email dev problem is “just add another table” #emailgeeks #tables4dayz
@RodriguezCommaJ: Modular design requires buy-in from everyone. Copywriters, designers, and coders all need to know what modules they can use. #LitmusLive
@tdnvl: “An Amazon email in your inbox should feel like an Amazon box on your doorstep.” @vickymakesstuff #LitmusLive #emailMarketing
@tatianatmac: “Design is the rendering of intent.” –@jmspool via @pnts #LitmusLive
@Listrak: 1/3 of shoppers took advantage of BOPIS (buy online, pick-up in store) in 2015 holiday season #ListrakTrends
@bestofjess: “The most important things don’t show up in analytics. I want a graph of hand-written thank you notes received & karma earned.” #contentjam
Noteworthy subject lines
OnlineShoes.com, 8/13 — Get $60 off | Gold, silver or bronze deals
West Elm, 8/13 — First-Place Picks! See what made our list…
Aeropostale, 8/15 — Trending: Our Americana Shop
Earth Day Network, 8/18 — World Records We Shouldn’t Be Breaking
Verizon, 8/21 — Now that the games are over, catch up on the best movies
ToysRUs, 8/2 — Calling All Candidates!
American Apparel, 8/9 — WIN A $500 Gift Card + Model For Us
Sony, 8/9 — A+ Innovations | Perfect for Back to School
GapKids, 8/9 — Classroom-cool, after-school ready
Dunkin’ Donuts, 8/26 — The hotter the weather, the better these taste!
Neiman Marcus, 8/3 — Baby, it’s cold INSIDE: 20% off cashmere right now
Brooks Brothers, 8/18 — It’s hot out. But now for long.
Lands’ End, 8/9 — There’s no such things as a “good enough” cardigan to us
Anthropology, 8/16 — A favorite designer. A soon-to-be favorite dress.
Victoria’s Secret, 8/18 — The perfect pair
The Swiss Colony, 8/9 — Snack Softly…and Chew a Savory Stick
Chili’s, 8/18 — This deal will have you guacin’ on sunshine!
San Diego Zoo, 8/12 — Happy 100th Birthday to the San Diego Zoo!
SeaWorld Orlando, 8/16 — Can you handle the thrills of National Coaster Day?
Goodwill Industries, 8/27 — DIY Harry Potter Inspired Projects
Dell, 8/2 — Wait… Dell.com has amazing savings on electronics too? (On second thought, don’t wait.)
Drs. Foster & Smith, 8/15 — Your Pet is About to Miss Out : (
J.Crew, 8/13 — Pop quiz! Which button-up’s for you?
Moosejaw, 8/18 — Can you Anagram with the Best?
GapKids, 8/18 — 2 inches taller? Try cute PJs that fit
Horchow, 8/1 — Need inspiration? We’ve got that!
Kate Spade, 8/13 — like? love!
Neiman Marcus, 8/12 — #onlyatNM evening dresses from Sachin & Babi Noir
Target, 8/28 — It’s #TargetRunDay! Get 10% off your purchase.
FansEdge, 8/24 — Avoid #FOMO. 25% Off Is Almost Over.
REI, 8/9 — Introducing REI Garage
Applebee’s, 8/2 — Chad, Download Our App and Save!
Ikea, 8/9 — Chad, the new 2017 IKEA Catalog is here!
New posts on EmailMarketingRules.com
The Untapped Opportunity for Weekend Promotional Emails
Why It’s More Likely Now that We’ll Be Able to FixOutlook
Marketing Tips to Drive Holiday Sales & Revenue
Teaching the Email Marketer How to Fish
Holiday Email Marketing: 4 Reasons to Start Planning Now!
Responsive-Aware Email Design’s Growing Appeal
Innovative Partner Interview with Movable Ink
The Untapped Opportunity for Weekend Promotional Emails
Posted on August 30, 2016
During my more than a decade of doing email marketing research, email volume during the weekend has always been significantly lower than during the weekdays. At the same time, response rates have always been higher during the weekend.
Yesmail’s latest research re-confirms this pattern and begs the question: Why has this disconnect persisted for so long? What’s keeping marketers from seizing the opportunity provided by sending weekend promotional emails?
I spoke to MediaPost reporter Jess Nelson about it, saying:
“Giving email marketers and other staff, such as legal, customer service, and social media teams, the incentives and support they need to work over the weekend is well worth investigating. Establishing policies such as flexible work hours and overtime pay for weekend and after-hours work can make this shift much easier.”
>> Read the article on MediaPost.com
Why It’s More Likely Now that We’ll Be Able to FixOutlook
Posted on August 23, 2016
Frustrations with email rendering in Outlook run deep. They date back to 2007 when Microsoft switched its Outlook rendering engine from Internet Explorer to Word, which had—and still has—poor support for HTML and CSS.
Those frustrations boiled over with the FixOutlook.org Project, which Campaign Monitor started in 2009. Aimed at getting Microsoft’s attention, the effort generated more than 24,000 tweets—including several from me—that were turned into a giant poster that was sent to Microsoft’s VP of Office.
The effort drew national media coverage and did succeed in eliciting a response from an understandably defensive Microsoft, which essentially said that they weren’t prepared to make any changes at that time. The release of Outlook 2010, which had basically the same rendering as Outlook 2007, confirmed Microsoft’s position.
Flash forward to Aug. 16, 2016, when Microsoft and Litmus announced a partnership to improve rendering in Outlook. Some people have asked: Why did this take so long? What’s different now?
Actually, quite a lot.
>> Read the full post on the Litmus blog
Marketing Tips to Drive Holiday Sales & Revenue
Posted on August 18, 2016
The holiday season is on the horizon. Along with 19 other experts, BigCommerce asked me for my top tip for a successful holiday season. My top holiday marketing tip was:
Start planning now! The majority of brands don’t plan their holiday email marketing campaigns more than 2 months in advance, according to our State of Email Production report. That’s a missed opportunity, given how much revenue is at stake and the additional production workload that occurs during the holiday season.
On average, retailers increase their email frequency to their subscribers by roughly 50% during November and December, compared to non-holiday months. That’s a lot of extra emails that have to get designed, coded, and QAed. Starting early can help marketers avoid rushing later.
BigCommerce also collected great holiday marketing tips from:
- Alex Birkett, Growth Marketer and Content Strategist, ConversionXL
- Jamie Turner, CEO, 60 Second Marketer
- Jason Dea, Director of Product Marketing, Intelex Technologies
- Jeff Sauer, Founder and Lead Instructor, Jeffalytics
- Jana Skulinova, Marketing Manager, MonkeyData
- Richard Lazazzera, Founder, A Better Lemonade Stand
- Ryan BeMiller, Founder, Shopping Signals
- Alex McEachern, Loyalty Marketing Specialist, SweetTooth
- Ashley Suarez Wood, Content Marketer, Packlane
- Raheem Sarcar, Founder and CEO, RewardCamp
- Sarah George, Enterprise Account Manager, BigCommerce
- Susannah Morris, Industries Marketing Specialist, HubSpot
- Timi Garai, Content Marketer, Antavo
- Joel Cherrico, Founder, Cherrico Pottery
- Andrew Youderian, Founder, EcommerceFuel
- Luke Guy, Blogger and Entrepreneur, LukeGuy.com
- Zach Heller, Marketing Consultant, Zach Heller Marketing
- Daniel Clutterbuck, Ecommerce and Social Media Strategy Consultant
- David Potts, CEO, SalesWarp
For all the great advice…
>> Read the entire post on the BigCommerce 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
