Resources

As the current crises began to unfold, I was interested to note that while we started out by calling the disease Coronavirus the name COVID-19 began emerge as the favorite among email marketers for use in Subject Lines (SL). So, a couple of days ago I decided to dig into the Touchstone - which uses Machine Learning to predict Open Rates - to see if I could learn anything of value.

Find out how the hidden functional links in your marketing emails could be driving a surprising amount of revenue... For many, the role of email is to drive people to a company's website. Then the site can do what it does best and convert prospects. Getting email recipients to click is the primary goal for many email campaigns. So it's not surprising that KPIs (key performance indicators) for email are often centered on click rates, with subject lines, creative, content and calls-to-action all crafted with maximum clicks in mind. Why do clicks matter? Clicks are one of our favorite metrics. For a start, they are much more reliable than open rates, and can be analyzed in a variety of ways to provide a significant amount of insight. For example...

A fresh look at the art of organic list growth...

Don't just write off apparently dead email addresses - see them as an opportunity to reinvigorate your email list... Looking at your list is like being the boy in the film The Sixth Sense - you see dead emails everywhere. But the fact that someone doesn't open an email, doesn't mean they should be struck from your list. In fact, there are good reasons for sticking with apparently inactive subscribers. After all, how often do you actively interact with marketing communications of any kind from a car dealer, insurance company, estate agent, bank, consumer electronics retailer, hotel chain, etc. delivered via other channels?

Landing pages have fallen out of favour lately. But are they really worth the extra effort?

The Uncomfortable Truth about Segmentation Everyone says you should segment your database and it’s been repeated so often it’s taken as read. It’s just common sense, right?

The key to A/B split testing in email is patience. Wait as long as you can to analyze results and you're more likely to get a true picture of what will happen when you roll out your eventual email campaign.

If you’ve been in email marketing for any length of time, you’ll know the stomach-churning panic of sending an email to the wrong segment of customers. How many complaints will we get? How many unsubscribes? Will we lose revenue? Was it my fault?

Everyone wants a reason to purchase or interact with your brand online, so give them a little incentive... Whether you choose to send specific and triggered messages within your email activity, or use them in your regular communications, incentives are a powerful tool to convince people to open your emails, click through from them, and ultimately make a purchase.

Sky News Producer and Data Directive litigation Troll Roddy Mansfield has apparently won his 3rd 'victory' against a brand - in this case, John Lewis, who (soft) opted-him-in for marketing by using a pre-ticked consent box after he had registered his details with John Lewis' website.

When new visitors or existing customers come to your website, you have a very limited time to convince them to part with their email address - and to give you permission to email them.

When collecting data, many email marketers find themselves torn between the desire to collect as many email addresses as possible - pursuing an acquisition strategy and the need to gather detailed information about each new subscriber - a segmentation strategy.