Search by name, company, title, location, etc.

David Baker

Member since May 2014Contact David

With more than 25 years of experience in digital marketing and marketing technology, Baker is an award-winning industry thought leader, columnist and speaker. He has held executive roles at publicly traded, leading agencies and marketing services providers including Razorfish, Targetbase, Agency.com and Acxiom. Direct Marketing roles at American Airlines and Franklin Covey as well as startups including Cordial, TwelveHorses, MindArrow/RadicalMail — a first generation rich media messaging company — and DigitalThink, the first eLearning Platform that went public in 1999. He has served as strategic advisor to various media and technology companies. Baker is one of only three individuals to be awarded the MediaPost Lifetime Achievement award (in 2012) for his contributions to the digital marketing industry, and he was also the recipient of the DMA-EEC Thought Leader of the Year award in 2016 for his positive impact on digital marketing. He is a MediaPost “Email Insider” columnist and former “Email Insider” Summit Chairman and program director. His works have also been published in iMedia Connection, Internet Retailer, Adweek, Direct Marketing News, ClickZ, The Drum and Chief Marketer.

Articles by David All articles by David

  • A Wishbone, A Backbone, A Funny Bone in Email Marketing Daily on 08/24/2017

    According to the National Retail Federation, 40% of consumers will start their shopping before Halloween. That's just over 70 days from now, which means you probably have your marketer hat on and have already begun thinking about, and likely planning, your holiday messaging and promotional strategies.

  • Email Journey Useful -- But Only Up To A Point in Email Marketing Daily on 06/13/2017

    Two thousand years ago Laozi wrote, "A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving." Not that Laozi, the founder of Taoism, was offering travel advice. Like all philosophers, his words drive at a universal truth: the importance of keeping an open mind.The operative word is fixed, because Laozi doubtless understood that all human endeavors depend on planning, and all plans inevitably collapse in the face of execution. Laozi would have made a hell of an email marketer.

  • Everything You Wanted To Know About Intelligent Messaging -- But Were Afraid To Ask in Email Insider on 05/16/2017

    I believe the world will change and all messaging will become intelligent, adapting to behaviors observed and expressed, controlled by consumer preference versus Pavlovian style promotional windows. I also believe the world will become more transactional in nature (think interaction management versus promotional messaging).

  • Great Email Experiences Require New Thinking in Email Insider on 05/01/2017

    The other day, a friend sent an email saying she had declared email bankruptcy. With one mighty click and a mass email explanation, she accomplished the unthinkable: deleting all messages in order to begin anew at inbox zero. The irony wasn't lost on my overcrowded inbox, but when I received her message, the email marketer inside of me gulped. How many relevant offers - offers my friend actually wanted to engage with - had just been obliterated?

  • Words Matter -- Even In Ransom Notes in Email Insider on 04/03/2017

    I like to think that kidnappers A/B test their ransom notes. For one thing, there's money on the line. Also, the tedious process of cutting and pasting letters from various periodicals into a ransom note gives kidnappers plenty of opportunity to think carefully about the words they want to use. With ransom notes, the message is everything, and the design serves only to conceal the sender's identity.

  • Optimizing Experiences For The Connected Consumer in Email Insider on 03/13/2017

    We are all connected - whether connected means you have panic attacks if you leave home without your mobile phone, or you feel empty sitting on the couch without your iPad within arm's reach. We are entering an age when knowing who your customers are and their activities is not enough to succeed. It's no longer sufficient to know which devices they use and simply call it a day. Even knowing where they use their devices is not enough to deliver truly relevant customer experiences. All of these data points must now be combined through event data and points-in-time references to be actionable.

  • How to Move Machine Learning From Possibility To Practice in Email Insider on 02/21/2017

    Imagine a world with no spell check -- then suddenly hearing someone say that there were tools available to autocorrect all your spelling in any language on the fly. "Blasphemy!" people might cry, until they tried it. Marketers today might think the same thing if you tell them that machine learning can improve their email campaigns.

  • Data Doesn't Lie -- People Do in Email Insider on 02/06/2017

    I've been reading a variety of 2016 benchmark trends. Things seem to be trending well for inbox delivery and engagement for email, but I'm so unimpressed with the analysis that typically comes with it.

  • When Personalization Doesn't Work in Email Insider on 01/09/2017

    We should all remember, there is a fine line between marketing brilliance - and having to walk into your boss's office and explain a poor customer digital experience that went viral. Sometimes the problem could be a personalization attempt that went awry.

  • Not Everyone Is Your Customer in Email Insider on 12/19/2016

    As we near the end of 2016, I spent time reflecting on topics I wrote about this year, with a couple of simple conclusions: Your inspiration is contextual to what's happening now, but without a well-thought-out plan, you will never scale your ideas.

Comments by David All comments by David

About Edit

You haven't told us anything about yourself! Surely you've got something to say. Tell us a little something.