Email Marketing RulesYear-in-Review Marketing Campaigns: Don’t Drop the Ball
Posted on December 4, 2024
As we approach the new year, some brands will be sending year-in-review campaigns—and perhaps should be, too. These typically include detailed information about how your customers engaged with your brand over the year, with an eye on how they got value from that engagement.
They’re the most popular with service- and entertainment-oriented brands, but they are a possibility for a host of other brands with regular interactions. And while year-in-review campaigns are the most popular in the email channel, brands can also promote these in SMS, push, and other channels by hosting the campaign online.
Because these campaigns involve a lot of personalization, they’re more complicated to produce than the typical campaign. Their high level of personalization also prompts a number of questions and concerns. Let’s look at the biggest ones.
Content Calendar Assistant 2025
Posted on December 3, 2024
Everybody can use a little help coming up with content ideas. And everybody can use a heads up to make sure they don’t look foolish or insensitive by launching campaigns that clash with US or international holidays, occasions, or events. Oracle Digital Experience Agency’s Content Calendar Assistant provides that help.
To aid you with your content planning, our Content Calendar Assistant is organized by quarter, month, and week. By quarter because that’s how big themes and seasons are planned. By month because that’s how we tend to think about content creation. And by week because that’s how we plan out our campaign creation. In total, it contains nearly 1,000 ideas to enhance your content planning, plus insights and advice from some of our hundreds of digital marketing experts.
AI Summaries for Email: Design Impacts on Marketers
Posted on November 26, 2024
Like so many application providers, email inbox providers are integrating generative AI into their inbox apps, or allowing GenAI tools to work on top of them. One of the primary uses is to provide summaries of emails.
To better understand how these tools are summarizing email content today, Oracle Digital Experience Agency ran tests with Apple Intelligence and Android AI using emails with varying content and coding elements. Before we detail those test results, let’s talk about the devices where these tools are available.
How to Identify & Create More Great Customers
Posted on November 15, 2024
Every company wants more customers. But even more than that, you want great customers. You want customers who are loyal and spend a lot with you. It’s the old 80-20 rule, where 20% of your customers are likely generating 80% of your revenue. Ideally, you’d like to grow that 20%, because increasing it even a little has a huge effect on your business.
Most brands start by asking themselves…
The Last Word on October 2024
Posted on November 8, 2024
A roundup of digital and email marketing articles, posts, and social buzz you might have missed last month…
Must-read articles, posts & reports
Email Reigns: It’s The Most Popular Channel Worldwide (MediaPost)
SEO in the AI Era: 3 Ways to Adapt (and get AI to mention your brand) (Andy Crestodina)
Connecting for Growth: A Makeover for Your Marketing Operating Model (McKinsey & Co.)
New Summary Cards in Gmail Help Track Purchases, Events, and More (Google)
Cox.net Email Transitioning to Yahoo (Cox)
Thank You Pages: 13 Missed Opportunities (Andy Crestodina)
Speak Easier: A Practical Guide to Public Speaking for Everyone (Jason Rodriguez)
Insightful & entertaining social posts
7 in 10 consumers worldwide prefer emails from brands: https://t.co/7PqUV8TYJJ#cotd #chartoftheday #newsletter #consumerbehavior #email #brand #emailmarketing pic.twitter.com/7fqd90Bk7N
— EMARKETER (@eMarketer) October 11, 2024
Idea for political campaign SMS:
“Hey (name), I have a win-win favor to ask – donate $20 to our campaign and we’ll delete your information from all of our databases. One & done. You get to help us, and know that we’ll never send you another message or sell your data.
(Link)
— Alex Williams (@alexcwilliams) October 23, 2024
Bowing Out: Consumers Are Quick To Unsubscribe From Emails https://t.co/LvhhCc7Syu -via @MediaPost pic.twitter.com/MNiVquV2sT
— James Koons (@Email_Privacy) October 7, 2024
Me showing up to conferences to talk about bringing back humanity and empathy to the customer experience while every other speaker is talking about AI. pic.twitter.com/HHPecaMLQl
— Christina Garnett (@ThatChristinaG) October 21, 2024
#litmuslive2024 pic.twitter.com/bS6qWhUDAo
— Anne Tomlin (@pompeii79) October 30, 2024
Noteworthy subject lines
Crate & Kids, 10/4 – NEW | Shop 300+ gifts in our Holiday Gift Guide!
Uncommon Goods, 10/19 – 10 ways to count down to Christmas
Forever 21, 10/24 – JUST IN: Kitschy Christmas 🎄✨
Michaels, 10/8 – 🎄 Discover your dream tree at your one-stop Christmas tree shop!
William Sonoma, 10/4 – 🌟 Baking spirits bright 🌟
adidas, 10/24 – Turn early prep into holiday gifts
Big Lots, 10/24 – BOO-GO Candy? Buy One Get One FREE Halloween Bagged Candy! 🍭
Scout fromBARK, 10/11 – Your dog’s free skeleton hoodie? Gone to-marrow.
Crate & Barrel, 10/26 – Everything you need for Thanksgiving (& every day after)
William Sonoma, 10/19 – The Roaster Event is on! Up to 35% off starts NOW
Petco, 10/7 – Want your dog to smell like delicious apples? 🍎🍂✨
Vuori, 10/4 – Coming Soon: Outerwear
The North Face, 10/11 – Our softest fleece for slower days.
Woot, 10/22 – Winter Called – It’s Running Late, but the Deals Are Right on Time!
Neiman Marcus, 10/12 – How to wear Spring 2025 trends
Quiksilver, 10/26 – Hawaii Collection: Unlock the Island Life 🏝️
Forever 21, 10/25 – Hello Kitty & Friends – NEW styles added!
Best Buy, 10/19 – O.M.G. Get TVs (for as low as $69.99)!
Everlane, 10/12 – People Say It’s Perfect
Scout from BARK, 10/8 – Want $100 of FREE dog sh*t? 🐶💩
Clinique Online, 10/7 – Double cleanse tonight 🌙 Here’s how
Allrecipes Dinner Tonight, 10/26 – Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s Midnight Snack Is Hilariously Relatable
Chubbies, 10/18 – NFL x CHUBBIES COLLECTION
Diesel, 10/8 – Diesel x Savage x Fenty
New posts on EmailMarketingRules.com
BIMI Email Standard Gets Big Boost by Becoming Less of a Standard
How to Leverage Email Marketing During the 2024 Holiday Season
Promotions Tab Hysteria Is Back! (Thanks, Apple)
Differentiate Your Messages with These Email From Name Extension Strategies
Fourth Quarter 2024 Holiday Marketing Quarterly
4 Ways to Boost Digital Marketing Margins When Discounting
6 Common Accessibility Myths that Cost Brands Customers
Good & Bad Reasons to Consider Switching ESPs
Posted on November 7, 2024
For marketers, changing email service providers (ESPs) is a time-consuming and risky endeavor, so they should be absolutely sure it’s necessary. That was the central message of a panel at the ANA’s 2024 Email Evolution Conference.
Throughout the session, I found myself constantly nodding in agreement. Here are some of the key themes, along with some of my own thoughts on this high-stakes issue.
How to Overcome Common AI Mistakes [with on-demand webinar]
Posted on November 1, 2024
While generative AI and machine learning tools have much to offer in terms of improving workflows, speed to market, and overall effectiveness across many applications, many organizations are wasting more time and resources chasing AI than actually executing it with meaningful results.
To succeed with AI, brands need to three major elements in place:
- The right strategies, people, and processes
- Capable technology and high-speed infrastructure
- Quality data
When one or more of those elements are lacking, it creates a significant barrier. In our work with clients and through our work with partners, we’ve seen five major types of problems come up again and again. In the 41-minute on-demand webinar below, we discuss those barriers, share lots of examples, and talk about solutions. However, in the remainder of this post, we spotlight those five barriers and summarize how to overcome them.
BIMI Email Standard Gets Big Boost by Becoming Less of a Standard
Posted on October 29, 2024
New moves by Google and Apple have given the Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) standard a huge boost. However, those same moves have fractured the email standard by creating multiple paths to various levels of compliance at various inbox providers.
Before getting into those new developments, let’s review the core benefits of BIMI and why it was created by a consortium of inbox providers and email industry vendors.
How to Leverage Email Marketing During the 2024 Holiday Season
Posted on October 18, 2024
The holiday season is the most critical time of the year for most B2C brands and is the most impactful time of the year for email marketing. Even with substantially higher email frequencies, revenue per email spikes during the holiday season.
To help you get more out of your email marketing efforts during the 2024 holiday season, I join 9 other email marketing experts to share tips to make the season bright. We talk about:
- Leveraging advanced segmentation and personalization techniques to create highly targeted campaigns
- Optimizing triggered email workflows for maximum impact and efficiency
- Incorporating interactive elements (GIFs, videos, gamification) to enhance engagement and drive conversions
- Crafting compelling and unique subject lines to capture attention in crowded inboxes
- And more
Promotions Tab Hysteria Is Back! (Thanks, Apple)
Posted on October 16, 2024
More than a decade after Gmail pioneered tabbed inbox interfaces, and many years after other major inbox providers add tabs to their inboxes, Apple Mail has followed suit with its iOS 18 release. But despite the laggard non-novelty of this change, Apple Mail’s hefty market share has the email marketing industry working itself up into a froth again and bad advice is resurfacing.
If the level of concern about tabs is rising at your organization, here are some things to keep in mind.
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
