The State of Email Marketing Is…

…strong, but could be stronger, according to the finding of our 2014 State of Marketing report, which surveyed more than 2,500 marketers. First, the testaments to email’s strength: Eighty-eight percent of marketers use email marketing and another 9% said they plan to launch an email program this year. Only 3% said they…

Broadening the Appeal of Mother’s Day, Graduation and Father’s Day Promotions

Why pitch your subscribers on buying one gift when you could be convincing them to buy two? A number of retailers have applied this thinking to their Mother’s Day, graduation and Father’s Day messaging in recent years. In order to increase average order sizes and get sales where they wouldn’t have otherwise…

I’m Visited by the Ghosts of Predictions Past, Present, and Future

In my latest Email Insider column for MediaPost, I reluctantly cast myself in the role Emailnezer Scrooge and am visited by three ghosts that hold me accountable for my past email marketing predictions and press me for an assessment of the present and for predictions of the future. >> Read my entire…

1st Mobile Christmas Greeted with Rise in Email Mobile-Friendliness

In this guest column for ClickZ, I take a deeper dive into the email mobile-friendliness research that’s highlighted in our Email Insights & Trends from Thanksgiving, Black Friday & Cyber Monday #Infographic. Looking at the promotional emails of nearly 110 major online retailers, we found that from early October to late November…

Infographic: Email Insights & Trends from Thanksgiving, Black Friday & Cyber Monday

The Thanksgiving Holiday Weekend includes some of the busiest email marketing days of the year, including top email day Cyber Monday, famed Black Friday, and the up-and-comer Thanksgiving Day. However, consumers behave differently on each of these days, which means retailers have to use different approaches on each day. Based on our…

My Top 3 Email Marketing Insights from Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday

In my latest Email Insider column for MediaPost, I share my top 3 insights from the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, which are that… 1. Thanksgiving Eve is the new Thanksgiving 2. Black Friday prompted an increase in mobile-friendly email designs 3. Cyber Monday is the busiest email marketing day of the year…but perhaps…

My Dreamforce Presentation: The Good, the Bad, and the Best

Last week I had the pleasure of speaking at Dreamforce, the world’s largest software conference, about email marketing best practices. My presentation discusses eight email marketing practices and shares real-world examples of good, bad and the best executions. Thanks to all of you who attended. You can watch my presentation on YouTube…

2 Key Techniques for Making Email Content More Mobile-Friendly

On the sliding scale of mobile-friendliness, most brands are just starting to get a grip on the fundamentals of email content design. In fact, ExactTarget research performed in early October found that out of nearly 160 B2C brands — including retailers, restaurants, manufacturers, travel and hospitality companies, and nonprofits — only 12%…

The Changing State of Email Nav Bars

The email navigation bar is evolving. Experimentation over the years has led to greater flexibility, fraying the connection between the links in website nav bars and those in email nav bars. And now the move to mobile-friendly is blowing up that connection completely, and whittling down the number of nav links to…

5 Mobile-Aware Email Redesigns

With 48% of emails read on a mobile device, according to Litmus, and 63% of consumers saying they delete emails immediately if they are not optimized for mobile, according to Return Path, there’s a growing imperative to be mobile-friendly. But being mobile-friendly doesn’t necessarily mean moving to responsive email designs. Depending upon…