Email Marketing RulesVerizon Acquires Yahoo, Uniting AOL and Yahoo Email Clients with Verizon’s Mobile Smarts
Posted on July 25, 2016
Driving further consolidation in the webmail space and setting themselves up to push harder into the mobile email space, Verizon acquires Yahoo for $4.83 billion. The move comes a little over a year after Verizon acquired AOL for $4.4 billion.
Uniting the email muscle of AOL and Yahoo could give Verizon a leg up in its battle with Microsoft for the No. 2 spot among webmail clients with the most market share. (Gmail has a firm grasp on the No. 1 spot.)
But the more interesting action is likely to occur in the mobile email space. Both AOL and Yahoo have struggled in a mobile world, but Verizon understands this world well and through its cellular service business has access to smartphone home screens.
>> Read the full story on the Litmus blog
B2B Marketers’ Emails Need to Be More Targeted
Posted on July 20, 2016
Voice of customer research firm ERDM Corp. has found that B2B marketers’ email marketing programs are frustrating customers and prospects with their “horrendous spray and pray” tactics. Ernan Roman, President of ERDM, added, “the level of exasperation and irritation is profound.”
I spoke with Demand Gen Report reporter Klaudia Tirico about the issue and why personalization isn’t the sole answer to this problem and that marketing automation isn’t necessarily part of the problem.
The problem is a lack of targeting—and triggered emails and personalized emails are “two sides of the same coin.” When done well, both increase relevance, and more relevance is what customer and prospects desperately want.
B2B marketers are well ahead of B2C marketers when it comes to using marketing automation, while B2C marketers are well ahead of B2B marketers when it comes to using personalization. Both can learn from each other.
>> Read the full article on DemandGenReport.com
Marketing Chat about Email of the Future
Posted on July 14, 2016
As part of Rare.io’s Marketing Chat series, I spoke with Ned Nadima about the future of email marketing and a variety of other topics. Here’s a preview of the questions that he asked me:
- How did you get into email marketing?
- Many email marketing articles describe the email of the future as a data-driven email that appears in your inbox with the right message and at the right time. Why can’t we have that today?
- With the rise of bots, messaging apps, and artificial intelligence, is email marketing dying?
- Can you give us an email marketing 101 that everybody can use today to send better emails?
- When it comes to email design, Litmus is in a league of its own. How are you guys able to pack so much information in one beautiful template? Is it a science or an art?
- What are the top 3 things you learned about email marketing leading the research team at Litmus?
- In a world where Litmus achieves its mission, how is email marketing better for designers, marketers, and customers?
For all of my answers…
>> Read the full interview on the Rare.io Blog
The Dangers of Conversion Inflation
Posted on July 13, 2016
We’ve changed the rules of marketing a lot during the Internet Era—and it hasn’t all been in the scrappy upstart way. A huge part of that has been the metrics that we use to measure success.
For instance, we replaced readership in the world of magazine and newspaper ads with impressions in the world of display ads. And we replaced viewership in the world of television with views in the world of online video. In both of those cases, the false equivalency we created overwhelmingly favored the digital format over the traditional format to help in our battle for budget.
Beyond the apples-to-oranges comparisons, the digital formats have been suffered from click fraud, bot activity, and extremely low standards. Unfortunately, email marketing is not immune to this breed of grade inflation, and it’s most evident in how we’re defining conversions, which has led to conversion inflation.
Depending on who you talk to and what tools you’re using, you’ll see conversions defined as:
- Opens
- Clicks
- Website browsing
- Purchasing
- Downloading a mobile app
- Tweeting a hashtag
- Video views
- Getting an email opt-in
- Registering for a webinar
- And on and on
It’s such a wide range of behaviors that it begs the question: Is everything and anything a conversion?
Well, yes…and absolutely not. The waters are muddy here because…
>> Read my entire column on MarketingLand.com
What Is a Conversion? And Is an Email Conversion Different?
Posted on July 12, 2016
Conversions are a critical metric for most email programs. However, in part because email programs have a bunch of secondary goals that are unique from the business’s goals, the definition of a conversion has become more than a little hazy, creating misalignments at some brands.
To clarify the definition, we asked 5 experts to share their thoughts on the issue:
- Alex Birkett, Growth Marketer at ConversionXL
- Steve Linney, Founder of eMRKTNG
- Erin King, Sr. Email Marketing Manager at Litmus
- April Mullen, Sr. Marketing Strategist at Selligent
- John Caldwell, President of Red Pill Email
To learn the difference between micro-conversions and macro-conversions, email conversions and website conversions, direct conversions and indirect conversions, and conversions and conversions to sale, then…
>> Read the entire post on the Litmus blog
The Last Word on June 2016
Posted on July 5, 2016
A roundup of email marketing articles, posts, and tweets you might have missed last month…
Must-read articles, posts & reports
Email Design Trends of 2016 (so far) (Really Good Emails)
Misconfigured email servers open the door to spoofed emails from top domains (Detectify)
., ? and ! – Does punctuation in the subject line help or hurt email performance? (Smart Insights)
Growing Your List with Giveaways (MailChimp)
Repermissioning Rules: What They Mean For Marketers (CMO.com)
Survey: Most Marketers Use 6+ Measurement Tools But Don’t Trust the Data (Convince & Convert)
Are Words (In Email Marketing Messages) So Last-Century? (MediaPost)
Mossberg: A smart new email app for the iPhone (The Verge)
Insightful & entertaining tweets
@Nivicious88: God, even the @GoogleDesign team doesn’t bother with mobile responsive email #emailgeeks #WTFguys https://gd-newsletter.storage.googleapis.com/edition/02/io-2016-edition.html
@EmailKarma: Is it extra funny when a company that tells you it can help get you to the inbox goes to your spam folder or just ironic? #EmailIsHard
@jainamistry: Cheeky subject line from @schuh. But it did make me double-take. buff.ly/25J3jQq pic.twitter.com/c9dxhOz9Al
@alexcwilliams: Unsubscribe prompt before subject line in iOS 10 beta. Hitting the “x” removes it permanently from that sender. pic.twitter.com/1EpVNoChI5
@ppk: “This is email. We don’t get the luxuries you web developers have.” @M_J_Robbins at #cssday
@lassediercks: “Email-clients have no beta version, no docs, no release notes” – @M_J_Robbins #cssday
@Bluecore: #INFOGRAPHIC: The #Emojis of #EmailMarketing by @rachklausner bit.ly/1VQumE3 pic.twitter.com/UzMg8K6sJR
@chupchap: Funny how Slack users went from “No more inbox clutter” to “How to deal with Slack Notification clutter”
@iamelliot: interesting mobile approach ? #emaildesign pic.twitter.com/dSkEH2xcME
@EmailKarma: We’re rapidly moving toward a world where all email is authenticated… #DMARC #email via @StopEmailFraud pic.twitter.com/QbAFxhLzw4
@WomenOfEmail: Join us on womenofemail.org, or search for our Facebook group to connect with us. We’re a community for women who work in email!
Noteworthy subject lines
Lenovo, 6/14 — Yaaasss, this tablet is cray on fleek. LOL! – Dad.
Gilt, 6/9 — 201 Last Minute Gift for Dad, Plus Free Shipping
AutoAnything, 6/15 — Become Dad’s Favorite OVERNIGHT!
Home Depot, 6/18 — Father’s Day Gifts So Good, He’ll Think You Planned Ahead
Clinique, 6/15 — 5 reasons to love summer, all free with purchase.
Banana Republic, 6/15 — Pro basketball player Kevin Love scores our suits
American Red Cross, 6/9 — Record flooding in Texas
Costco Wholesale, 6/20 — Visa is now the only major credit card accepted at Costco warehouses.
Autism Speaks, 6/20 — Autism Friendly Performance – Blue Man Group Boston
Brooks Brothers, 6/9 — Starts at 1:00 a.m.: Semi-Annual Sale is (almost) here!
ModCloth, 6/8 — This top + these shorts = flawless.
Home Depot, 6/30 — C E L E B R A T E + S A V E
Kate Spade, 6/9 — what’s new? this iphone crossbody.
Lenovo, 6/30 — Now Available – First Lenovo OLED 2-in-1 Ever
Michaels, 6/28 — Something Special for Harry Potter Fans
Threadless, 6/27 — A Star Trek collection? Logical.
ASPCA, 6/26 — Will you be a leader for animals?
Hillary Clinton, 6/30 — Chad vs. Donald Trump
No Labels, 6/7 — 124
Pier 1 Imports, 6/30 — Rubber duckies welcome.
Olive Garden, 6/24 — Can we show off our mussels?
The Swiss Colony, 6/14 — Summer Snacking, Had Me a Blast
ModCloth, 6/28 — Aahh. Push it. Push it ‘GRILL’ good!
Vera Bradley, 6/29 — We heard your cheers: 50+ schools added!
ASPCA, 6/8 — Vote for the ASPCA Calendar Cover Pet!
LifeWay, 6/8 — Father’s Day Catalog Is Here!
Lego, 6/10 — Subscribe to LEGO Club and WIN!
Walmart, 6/11 — Shopping is better on our App
American Apparel, 6/22 — Now Trending
Gap, 6/19 — gap and old navy walk into your inbox…
New posts on EmailMarketingRules.com
The Verdict on Single Opt-In vs. Double Opt-In
How Microsoft Could Leverage LinkedIn’s Business
4 Fears Email Marketers Need to Conquer
5 Ways Microsoft’s Acquisition of LinkedIn Could Impact Email Users and Email Marketers
Single Opt-in vs. Double Opt-in: The Court of Public Opinion
The Verdict on Single Opt-In vs. Double Opt-In
Posted on June 17, 2016
We’ve heard the case for single opt-in (SOI) and the case for double opt-in (DOI). And we have also heard public opinion on the matter, which is nearly evenly split.
After weighing all the evidence, we’ve come to the following three opinions:
- Single opt-in just isn’t an option for everyone.
- Boiling permission down to single opt-in vs. double opt-in is a gross oversimplification as that puts all the focus on confirmation, which is only one component of an opt-in.
- Single opt-in and double opt-in both have a place in many organizations.
>> Read the full post on the Litmus blog
How Microsoft Could Leverage LinkedIn’s Business
Posted on June 16, 2016
I spoke with CIO Dive about the Microsoft-LinkedIn deal and what the synergies are. Here are the three key questions they asked along with my responses:
What is Microsoft going to do with LinkedIn user data?
Beyond the synergies around Microsoft’s Dynamics CRM and Bing ad targeting, LinkedIn user data could be used to augment Microsoft Outlook’s email address book functionality. Contact information can get stale quickly. But LinkedIn data could be used to keep this information current—as well as to suggest alternative potential contacts by using company names and titles when the contact a user has is no longer relevant. A live, auto-updating address book would be a powerful addition to Outlook.
How can they use LinkedIn to promote products?
Microsoft will certainly be able to use LinkedIn to directly promote their products through ads and other content on the network. But the greater opportunity is to use the platform to demonstrate how useful Microsoft tools are rather than just telling LinkedIn users that they’re useful.
For instance, Microsoft could replace LinkedIn messaging with Outlook 365, reserving some advanced functionality for Premium LinkedIn users. The ability to compose rich messages using Word and schedule meetings using Outlook’s calendar from within LinkedIn would be very attractive. Plus, Microsoft could integrate Skype into LinkedIn so the meetings themselves could happen within the social network. Integrating Cortana into LinkedIn, especially into their mobile app, could also prove powerful.
How does this fit in with Office 365?
In addition to replacing LinkedIn messaging with Outlook 365 and using LinkedIn connections to create a live, auto-updating address book, Microsoft could also add interactive functionality to create more powerful email experiences. For instance, Google allows you to approve Google Plus connection requests inside emails in Gmail without clicking through to Google Plus, and Gmail supports embedded video content from YouTube. Microsoft should follow Google’s lead and strengthen the ecosystem around Outlook 365 by integrating it with LinkedIn and SlideShare so that emails from LinkedIn are interactive and supporting SlideShare embeds.
>> Read the full story on CIODive.com
4 Fears Email Marketers Need to Conquer
Posted on June 14, 2016
When Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers came out in 2008, everyone was really taken by the “10,000 Hour Rule,” which said that it took roughly 10,000 hours to become an expert at something. At the time, I worked at the email marketing agency Smith-Harmon and we liked the concept so much that we created our own corollary: the “10,000 Email Rule.” That’s where you are considered an email expert once you’d created, analyzed, or reviewed 10,000 emails. Needless to say, that can take a lot less than 10,000 hours.
I remember the agency’s co-founder, Lisa Harmon, telling the team that email marketing was a relatively quick medium to master because:
- It’s high-volume
- It’s highly measurable
- It’s quickly measurable
- It has high returns
- It’s easily A/B tested
- Mistakes aren’t seen by all your subscribers and only haunt you until your next send, which…oh my god…you have to get ready for!
Essentially, email marketing is the epitome of a “fail fast” medium, because you can quickly and relatively painlessly experiment and learn from your tests and mistakes to achieve greater success. Or at least it should be.
>> Read my entire column on MarketingLand.com
5 Ways Microsoft’s Acquisition of LinkedIn Could Impact Email Users and Email Marketers
Posted on June 13, 2016
Microsoft’s announced $26 billion acquisition of LinkedIn today will not only net the tech giant the top business-oriented social network, but the move could have several ramifications for email users and email marketers. Here are five possible scenarios to watch for:
- LinkedIn messaging replaced by Outlook 365
- LinkedIn contacts integrated into Outlook address book
- LinkedIn and SlideShare interactivity within Outlook email inboxes
- Better spam protection on LinkedIn.
- Skype and Calendar integration into LinkedIn
For all the details…
>> Read the full post on the Litmus 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
