Email Marketing RulesThe Last Word on October 2015
Posted on November 2, 2015
A roundup of email marketing articles, posts, and tweets you might have missed last month…
Must-read articles, posts & whitepapers
The Triumphant Return of the Email Newsletter (Harvard Business Review)
Which three channels are the biggest priorities for marketers? (Econsultancy)
Email Marketing Data – Can You Trust It? (Emarketeers)
Building the Optimal Transactional Email (Infographic) (Silverpop)
Yahoo Mail’s Mobile App Gets A Whole Lot Slicker And Speedier (Fast Company)
HTML Emails: Improving workflow and process (Jono Milnes)
Data Is Friend Who Might Just Kill Us (MediaPost)
Role Addresses and Their Effect on Email Deliverability (SendGrid)
Insightful & entertaining tweets
@Snowden: I forgot to turn off notifications. Twitter sent me an email for each: Follow Favorite Retweet DM 47 gigs of notifications. #lessonlearned
@chiefmartec: In the short-term, investing in innovation seems sub-optimal — but only if you assume the status quo will continue. pic.twitter.com/wIWHvbts9l
@omgitsonlyalex: “Should we segment our list by location to give them the proper offer in the subject line?” “Nah throw it all in” pic.twitter.com/vQeOTTmAoJ
@jeremywaite: @antonyslumbers @om I prefer ~ “Marketing used to be about creating a myth and spreading it. Now it is about finding a truth and sharing it”
@nharhut: Most digital strategy is optimized for one night stands. Have something to say to those not ready to buy right now. @avinash #mpb2b
Noteworthy subject lines
The White House, 10/21 — Today, we’re in the future:
Threadless, 10/21 — Great Scott! BTTF tees on sale!
Michaels, 10/22 — Happy National Color Day!
Gerber, 10/31 — Voting has begun!
Drs. Foster & Smith, 10/31 — Halloween Treats Can Harm Pets
Jetsetter, 10/22 — Costume Idea: Be “On Vacation”
American Apparel, 10/22 — Have You Seen Our Costumes?
ModCloth.com, 10/14 — Open, if you dare…
AMP, 10/14 — Open this, get free stuff. Simple.
AJ Madison, 10/29 — Prepare for Cooking Season
OnlineShoes.com, 10/30 — Black Friday exclusive pre-sale
Moosejaw, 10/29 — The 3rd Greatest Gift Guide You’ll See This Year
eBags, 10/30 — Our Holiday Gift Guide is Here
Restoration Hardware, 10/29 — The 2015 Holiday Collection. Inspired Ideas for the Season.
MAC Cosmetics, 10/21 — Top of the List: Holiday. Plus Free Shipping.
Restoration Hardware, 10/20 — Introducing Baby & Child’s Holiday Gift Collection + Extra 10% Off All Sale Extended 1 Day
Clinique, 10/29 — This kiss-happy gift won’t last. Get yours now! FREE with purchase
PersonalizationMall.com, 10/15 — Save 40% On Personalized Christmas Cards
Wayfair, 10/7 — The season of cheer is near! Merry Markdowns on thousands of must-haves
Hayneedle.com, 10/7 — Christmas trees! Rustic dining, bathroom updates & pet stuff, too!
Jetsetter, 10/4 — Secrets to Saving BIG on Holiday Travel
Godiva Chocolatier, 10/22 — Chocolate favoritism is encouraged + 15% OFF Dark Chocolate
Barneys New York, 10/4 — Now This is How You Weather a Storm
Garnet Hill, 10/4 — WINTER FORECAST: Warm and beautiful
Anthropologie, 10/7 — 3 ideas you’ll warm up to quickly
MoMA Store, 10/4 — Shop now or pay for shipping
Under Armour, 10/1 — Support The Mars Mission…
NFLshop, 10/30 — Patriots Win Again! Shop the Latest Collections!
Wayfair, 10/3 — Bedroom giving you the snores? Try a quick bedding refreshing
Anthropologie, 10/4 — This is our kind of couch-surfing.
Gucci, 10/21 — Introducing the new Gucci.com
Art.com, 10/21 — You asked – we answered. Frame Your Art by mail now available!
Neiman Marcus, 10/19 — Shop NM on Pinterest + Instagram!
New posts on EmailMarketingRules.com
Improve Your Holiday Season Campaign Results by Sending These 3 Emails Now
5 Tips to Get Your Triggered Emails Ready for the Holiday Season
Improve Your Email Production Process by Taking the Email Production Survey
4 Reasons Broadcast Emails May Be Making Your Email Program Less Competitive in the Future
Improve Your Holiday Season Campaign Results by Sending These 3 Emails Now
Posted on October 28, 2015
The email marketing holiday season will kick into overdrive during the week of Thanksgiving. But before we get to that point, here are three emails that B2C brands should be sending now to get their databases in good shape for a successful holiday season:
- Re-permission Emails for your chronically inactive subscribers
- Win-Back Emails for your active subscribers who aren’t active customers
- Preference Update Emails for your active subscribers to ensure that you continue to send them relevant messages
For a full discussion of each of these types of emails, plus real world examples from Dell, West Elm, and Threadless…
>> Read the full post on the Litmus blog
5 Tips to Get Your Triggered Emails Ready for the Holiday Season
Posted on October 20, 2015
Triggered emails are not “set it and forget it”; they are “review and renew.” That’s especially true going into key selling seasons, like retailers are about to do. During November and December, retailers’ transactional emails and triggered emails will be high-performance assets.
Here are 5 ways retailers can make their triggered emails perform even better this holiday season:
- Make cart abandonment triggers quicker, especially on Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday.
- Address browse abandonments caused by out-of-stocks.
- Add holiday headers to all triggered and transactional emails.
- Add a gift services footer to abandonment emails and transactional emails.
- Re-skin and add seasonal messaging to your welcome email or welcome series.
For a full discussion of each of these tips, along with plenty of real-world examples of campaigns,…
>> Read the entire post on the Litmus blog
Improve Your Email Production Process by Taking the Email Production Survey
Posted on October 15, 2015
Every brand’s email production process is unique—with different planning, development, and approval processes. Every brand also has points of strength and points of weakness in their workflow.
The Email Production Survey seeks to create a detailed picture of the current state of email production that you can use to benchmark your own process. By pooling our collective wisdom, we can help each other identify opportunities for improvement and provide evidence that can be used to make a compelling argument for more resources or process streamlining.
Together we can make email better!
>> Improve Your Email Marketing Workflow
4 Reasons Broadcast Emails May Be Making Your Email Program Less Competitive in the Future
Posted on October 6, 2015
Mainly driven by increases in broadcast messages, per subscriber email volume has increased at more than a 15% compound annual growth rate over the past decade. It’s an impressive growth streak—and a testament to consumers’ strong preference for brands to communicate with them via email versus other channels. It’s also a streak I think is about to end.
In my latest Marketing Land column, I discuss how the sea change that’s occurring in email marketing is that triggered and transactional emails are accounting for more and more of channel revenue. For some brands, revenue from these emails—which include welcome, browse and cart abandonment, birthday, post-purchase, and order confirmation emails—already account for the majority of their email marketing revenue. In the not-too-distant future, great email marketing programs will be defined by passing this milestone.
There’s just one thing holding back more brands from achieving this: an over-reliance on broadcast emails.
Here are 4 reasons an over-emphasis on broadcast emails may be impeding your ability to transition to an email program where your revenue is driven by triggered emails…
>> Read the entire column on MarketingLand.com
Email Marketing’s Greatest Strength & Greatest Weakness
Posted on October 5, 2015
“Email’s greatest strengths often double as its greatest weaknesses,” says DM News’ Ginger Conlon in the introduction to The Email Opportunist. “Fortunately, savvy marketers can overcome the latter to capitalize on the former.”
I was among the 16 experts interviewed for this report on the channel’s greatest strengths and weaknesses. In a nutshell, I said that “Email’s greatest strength is that it’s the most used one-to-one marketing channel” and that “email’s greatest weakness is that it’s an open platform controlled by many companies.”
Check out the report for my full thoughts on how to capitalize on email marketing’s strength and minimize its weakness. Also check out the thoughts of the other 15 experts, in particular those of Daniel Burstein of MECLABS Institute, Loren McDonald of Silverpop, and Ben Ardito of Epsilon.
>> Download “The Email Opportunist”
The Last Word on September 2015
Posted on October 2, 2015
A roundup of email marketing articles, posts, and tweets you might have missed last month…
Must-read articles, posts & whitepapers
3 Market Forces to Master in the Pursuit of the Individual Customer (Adweek)
How The New York Times Gets 70% Email Open Rates (Contently)
How Much Revenue Does Email Drive? (eMarketer)
Consumers Refuse to Be Part of the Same Crop [Infographic] (DM News)
5 Holiday Shopping Trends to Watch in 2015 (Think with Google)
Hybrid Collapsible Menu For Email (FreshInbox)
DMARC: Monitor & secure your email delivery (Postmark)
Insightful & entertaining tweets
@iamacyborg: Data-shamed, economists are turning an influential email into an experiment about bias buff.ly/1JTNQMw #Emailgeeks #Emaildesign
@EmailSnarketing: The pope’s visit is really just a segmented lapsed members re-engagement campaign
@LisaMDick: Spend 10-15% of your time exploring new things to do. Love the encouragement to really think! #CUG15
Noteworthy subject lines
Expedia, 9/1 — Labor Day car-rental deals
FragranceNet.com, 9/2 — September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month – Show Your Support and Save 20% OFF Sitewide!
Pier 1 Imports, 9/2 — Because Santa can’t do it alone.
Tiny Prints, 9/20 — Introducing Our 2015 Holiday Collection
Lego, 9/2 — Count down to the holidays with Lego® Advent Calendars!
Victoria’s Secret, 9/14 — Flash sale! 9-11pm EST tonight
Hayneedle, 9/11 — Office-bedroom ideas + porch seating, wine racks & more.
Express, 9/14 — 1 red suit, 5 ways to wear it.
Gander Mountain, 9/11 — Columbia – Gear That Is Versatabulous.
Barneys New York, 9/17 — Spend and You Shall Receive: Purple Card is Happening Now
Drs. Foster & Smith, 9/11 — Is your pet at risk for Urinary Incontinence?
Walmart, 9/17 — Which college has the most spirit? Watch the video.
GNC, 9/2 — Are You in the 90%? Find Out & Save BIG on Top Brands
AutoAnything, 9/1 — Products You Love + Free Shipping = No Regrets
The Museum of Modern Art, 9/9 — Be the first to see Picasso Sculpture
Restoration Hardware, 9/3 — Introducting RH TEEN. Arriving Soon.
Apple, 9/24 — iPhone 6s. Get it at the Apple Store tomorrow.
Horchow, 9/9 — OOPS! We’ve fixed the problem. Don’t miss 25%-30% off entire site!
Neiman Marcus, 9/11 — Oops! The site is back up: Up to 75% OFF is now extended!
Neiman Marcus, 9/12 — Be one of our Spring 2016 Faces of Beauty!
Applebee’s, 9/16 — Chad, Will you be featured on our Instagram?
Gander Mountain, 9/2 — Sign Up for Text Alerts from Gander Mountain – Special In-Store Offer!
Express, 9/17 — Street style inspired by #NYFW + 20% off just for texting us!
Dunkin’ Donuts, 9/2 — Chad, Update Your Dunkin’ app
Ann Taylor, 9/14 — Don’t Skip This Email…
New posts on EmailMarketingRules.com
Email Is Vital to a Sharing Strategy
Infographic: Creating Memorable, Shareworthy Email Experiences
The Pros & Cons of the New ‘Block’ Button from Gmail
4 Characteristics of Contextually Aware Emails
‘The Email Episode’ of Salesforce’s new Marketing Cloudcast
How to Recover from an Email Marketing Mistake (or the Slow-Motion Meltdown and Rebirth of Our Live Twitter Feed Email)
Posted on October 1, 2015
You may have heard the triumphant story of how we embedded a live dynamic Twitter feed in our “Save the Date” email for The Email Design Conference (TEDC), but what you haven’t heard is the story about how it all went wrong when we pressed “send” the first time.
In addition to sharing this story, we highlight 5 things that email marketers can learn from our mistake:
- Recognize that your ESP is potentially an active player in how your emails render.
- Monitor other channels after sending an email.
- If you can recognize a serious mistake quickly, pause the campaign.
- Once you have a fix, double- and triple-check it.
- When a mistake seriously impacts conversions, brand image, or the subscriber experience, resend the email with a brief apology at the top.
>> Get the full story on the Litmus blog
>> Share an email marketing mistake you made and the lessons learned
Email Is Vital to a Sharing Strategy
Posted on September 30, 2015
When you want your customers to share their experiences with your brand, you should not just be thinking about social. You should think about email as well.
In Getting the Most from Your Email Content, ClickZ’s Susan Kuchinskas shares details from Sperry’s Odyssey Project, which created individually tailored adventures for nearly 80 people in exchange for them sharing their experiences with their followers via Twitter, Facebook, Vine, Instagram, YouTube—and, yes, email.
In the article, I shared some tips from Litmus’ Viral Email report that marketers can use to increase the viral effectiveness of their messages, including advice about design, content, and the role of targeting.
>> Read the full article on ClickZ.com
Infographic: Creating Memorable, Shareworthy Email Experiences
Posted on September 28, 2015
All marketers want to create relevant experiences for their email subscribers, but unfortunately the vast majority are not succeeding on a regular basis, according to joint research by Litmus and Fluent. We asked US consumers if they’d received a memorable promotional email in the past 2 months from any of the brands they subscribed to and only 21% said that they had.
Our new infographic, Creating Memorable, Shareworthy Email Experiences, shares the full results of our consumer survey. It also identifies specific tactics that marketers can use to create more memorable, shareworthy emails, drawing upon our recent research into mobile-friendly email and landing page trends and into viral email behavior.
>> View the infographic 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
