Gmail’s 10th Anniversary: Its 3 Greatest Contributions

From Day 1, Gmail has had a palpable distain for the status quo. Experimentation and user-centricity are the central pillars of the service, which has consistently been home to marketers’ most desirable subscribers and has regularly given marketers fits and sleepless nights. Beginning as an invitation-only service on Apr. 1, 2004, Gmail’s…

100 Inspiring Subject Lines: 5 Examples of Using Special Characters

Support for special characters is good enough that they’ve become common in subject lines over the past 24 months or so, opening up many new creative opportunities. Our 100 Inspiring Subject Lines includes some great examples of ones that use special characters: Subject Line #69 Avaaz.org, 12/10/12 — They want to ██████…

Super-Engagement: Increasing the Value of Your Most Valuable Subscribers

Engagement is critical to email marketing success. It’s so important that when our regularly scheduled broadcast emails fail to engage, we launch reengagement campaigns to reactivate inactive subscribers or those in risk of becoming inactive. That’s smart because reengagement efforts improve deliverability and extend the time that subscribers are on your list,…

7 Years as a MediaPost Email Insider Columnist and Counting

It was seven years ago this month that I started regularly writing for MediaPost’s Email Insider blog. My column tomorrow will be my 149th and I’m particularly excited about the concept I discuss in it, so I hope you’ll check it out. But I wanted to take this opportunity to share five…

The Social Swipe File: Our Latest Pinboard of Marketing Inspiration

First there was the Email Swipe File. Then the Audience Growth Swipe File. And now there’s the Social Swipe File. On our latest Pinterest pinboard, you’ll find examples of the hottest social campaigns, as well as under-the-radar gems, from across the social media spectrum—from Facebook to Twitter, and Instagram to Vine. We…

The Email Design Toolkit: The Basics + Coding + Data Strategy

Email design is like nothing else. To ensure that you have a solid design foundation, we’ve created the Design Toolkit, a 3-part report will help you create email that… Look good. In Email Design Basics, I give you a crash course in the essentials. Work well. Get a general guide to writing…

Video: My Personal Favorites from 100 Inspiring Subject Lines

100 Inspiring Subject Lines has some fantastic examples of various subject line strategies, from newsjacking to puns, and personalization to special characters. However, for me there were four that really stood out as the best of the best. I share them in this short video: So those are the ones at the…

100 Inspiring Subject Lines: 4 Subject Line Personalization Examples

While first-name personalization of subject lines can still be effective when used prudently, it has become clear that subject line personalization has moved beyond first names. At this point, knowing a subscriber’s name is just not very impressive, and not a convincing indicator that the content of the email is personalized and…

100 Inspiring Subject Lines: 5 Newsjacking Examples

The practice of leveraging the popularity of a news story, event or cultural phenomena to promote yourself or your company, newsjacking is one of many ways to boost the relevance of your emails. Our 100 Inspiring Subject Lines includes some great examples of newsjacking in action: Subject Line #21 Bluefly, 10/23/08 —…

Email Marketing Rules published 1 year ago today

Wow! It was just last year on Mar. 4 that Email Marketing Rules hit book shelves. What a year it’s been! First, my most sincere thanks go out to the thousands of you that picked up a copy. I hope it’s helping you improve your email marketing programs. I’d also like to…