Don't blame the ISPs for your mail landing in the spam folder. Blame the spammers. Over 85% of email received into our network of ISPs around the world is considered spam. This creates a herculean task for ISPs to ensure that the email ecosphere is safe and trusted, and that good messages get delivered to the inbox and bad ones are blocked or sent to the spam folder.

As a parent, I would love to believe that it is my influence (my husband's too) on my children that make them smart, funny, confident and just so darn cute! But realistically, it is some combination of nature and nurture that make my children who they are, Much like with children, when evaluating email campaigns, we may be biased to attribute success in a single mailing to the new thing we tried with the content, or the time of day when we sent the email, or the new subject line -- all factors under our direct control -- rather than …

As the season turns, most B2C brands introduce brighter color palettes, outdoor aspirational photography and upbeat seasonal messaging to their email campaigns. Beyond those essential creative touches, summer also offers distinctive opportunities to make email campaigns useful to subscribers' daily lives. It's not necessary to change the primary messaging; these tactics can be used to support existing campaign plans or put a new spin on a regularly featured product.

Studies show you have about two seconds to capture attention in the crowded inbox. Once an email is opened, you have five to 20 seconds to attract interest, communicate your key message and call to action, and create engagement with your brand. This is why the copywriter has to be on top of his or her game. No matter how much content properly belongs in your email, whether it's a single slogan or a newsletter full of stories, you have to make every word count.

If you asked a new hotel staff member what a guest was worth when he or she first walked through the front door, you would get responses like $150-$200 or even a bold guess of $300. When you tell them they are actually worth over $50,000, disbelief usually leads to an explanation of how this is factored. If a guest has a good experience, he or she will likely visit twice a year for at least 10 years and would also tell five other people, 20% of whom would stay as well, and hopefully a similar dynamic would prevail. Now …

I can hear you now: "What??? You always say I'm supposed to send a welcome message to new subscribers, and now you tell me it's dead? What gives??"

"We have to let everyone know about this." That phrase is common in marketing departments of all sizes, across all verticals, around the world. What "this" is could be a limited-time promotion, the opening of a conference's registration, the receipt of a prestigious award -- you name it. Whatever your brand, there is frequently something pertaining to it that is important enough to share with as many people as possible. Up until recently, the common rejoinder to that phrase was, "OK, let's send an email." Today it is not so simple. Not only do most of us not enjoy 100% …

Wednesday was my birthday, and I spent the day on the road traveling for business. When I finally reached my destination, I was determined to celebrate my birthday. Thankfully, I like the folks I am traveling with, so we opted to go to a local bar for a beer and bite to eat. It was late, and I was hungry. We decided that the first "interesting" thing to jump off the menu was going to be dinner. And so it was that this crazy-ass burger found its way to my table.

Email strategy is shaped by the questions we ask. Most companies seem to ask if they are sending too much email. Even worse, they assume they are sending too much email. I can only assume this is based on a slew of reports and research studies that ask questions like, "Why do you unsubscribe from email?" As a researcher, I have asked this exact question in surveys. It's a fair question, and frequency is almost always the most commonly cited reason why people unsubscribe. Similarly, ask people how often they would like to receive email from companies and they are …

Last year, when I examined how major retailers handle inactives, I was alarmed that most still emailed subscribers who had not opened or clicked an email in over three years. Since that research was published, smanaging inactives has thankfully become a hot topic. While some are trying to dispel the whole notion that mailing long-term inactives is a danger at all, there's mounting evidence that smart marketers are taking prudent steps to improve their deliverability and email revenue by using engagement metrics.