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…
How Emails Are Evolving into Mailable Microsites
“The emails of the future will be much more like sending subscribers a microsite than a static message,” I say at the end of my book, Email Marketing Rules. Watching videos, browsing product assortments, and even making product purchases will also be possible without leaving the inbox. When the book was published…
Is Email Marketing Cheap or Does It Have a High ROI?
How you and—more importantly—your boss answer that question easily predicts the future success of your email marketing program. In this Email Insider column for MediaPost, talk about: The behaviors that indicate an “email marketing is cheap” mentality vs. an “email marketing’s ROI is high” mentality The results of these two lines of…
6 Retail Email Marketing Priorities for 2015
Getting ready for the holiday season is almost a year-round effort—which is to say you’re preparing for November and December the other 10 months of the year. To help you prep, I discuss 6 retail email marketing priorities in this slide deck, which includes supplemental links to research reports, articles, and real-world…
Disconnects on Metrics: Health vs. Optimization vs. Success Metrics
Marketers have become very focused on measuring the effects of their work—which is both good and bad. On the one hand, quantifying things can prove that certain strategies and tactics are effective and worth additional investment. On the other hand, we don’t always do a very good job at understanding the numbers…
9 Experts Weigh in on Email Metrics that Matter
If you’re just looking at your email open and click rates, you’re missing out, says Tim Watson, founder of email marketing consultancy Zettasphere. I couldn’t agree more. To help marketers better understand how to use the email metrics that are available to them, Tim asked me and eight other email marketing experts…
The New Litmus Test for a Great Email Marketing Program
I used to say the hallmark of a great email marketing program was that they have a robust A/B testing program. It’s not just because I consider A/B testing a key optimization tool and a vital part of “listening” to subscribers, but because if a brand is taking the time to follow…
The Email Marketing Rules for Measuring Success
In my latest Email Insider column for MediaPost, I discuss three poor email marketing success metrics and explain what a better alternative metric is in each case. Instead of unqualified list growth, where every new subscriber is viewed as equally valuable, I recommend using “real list growth.” This metric adjusts for subscriber…