5 Reasons External Email Benchmarks Are Less Useful Than You Think

Our competitive nature drives us to want to know how other email marketers are performing. But aggregated, averaged benchmark data can provide false comfort and false alarms. I’m not saying benchmarks are completely unuseful, just that they’re usually only helpful in a very general way for the following reasons: Audience response is…

Win a Copy of “Email Marketing Rules” in MarketingSherpa’s Weekly Book Giveaway

MarketingSherpa has been giving away great marketing books since 2002 and this week I’m excited that they’ll be giving away copies of Email Marketing Rules. >> Sign up by Aug. 2 for your chance to win While you’re at it, sign up to receive MarketingSherpa’s Email Marketing newsletter, which will keep you…

The Hierarchy of Subscriber Needs: Are You Satisfying All 4?

Everyone wants to send more “relevant” emails, right? That’s been the buzzword of the email industry for a few years now. However, typically relevance is discussed in narrow terms, generally in regards to content. But relevance is much more than that. Just think about all the reasons that people mark your emails…

Infographic: 2015 Mobile-Friendly Email & Landing Page Trends

We’ve been beating the drum on the need to be more mobile-friendly for years as email reading has shifted from desktop and webmail to mobile devices. According to data from Litmus Email Analytics, mobile email reading has plateaued at around 50%. However, new joint research from Litmus and Salesforce shows that marketers…

Tactics Used by the Top 1% of Viral Emails

“One of the key drivers of sharing is social capital. Sharing something of interest to our network is a way of showing that we’re in the know. It is a means to build our professional, cultural or social standing among our circles,” said Alfred Hermida, Associate Professor at the Graduate School of…

5 Secrets to Getting Subscribers to Forward Your Emails

Social sharing gets a lot of attention—in large part, because it’s relatively easy to measure—but the all but invisible email forward can be just as powerful for brands. Whereas social sharing is public, diffuse, and powerful at driving top-of-the-funnel awareness, email forwards are private, targeted, and excel at driving bottom-of-the-funnel action. To…

#Webinar: ‘How to Make Your Emails Go Viral’ on 7/14 at 11am ET

We tend to associate “going viral” with social media—in part because it’s relatively easy to see and measure the very public noise of social sharing in terms of likes, favorites, and retweets. However, the much quieter email forward is often a considerably more powerful influencer because its sharing is more targeted, personal,…

Shopping Cart Abandonment Gamesmanship

Consumers are smart. If you play games, they will figure them out, exploit them, and then tell their friends. In this Internet Retailer article, Don Davis looks at the results of a Shop+ survey that shows that shoppers—especially millennials—are crafty deal-seekers. For instance, 47% of consumers ages 18-34, and 37% of all…