• Can You See The Email Forest -- Or Are You Distracted By The Trees?
    Google has done it again. Inbox, the newest iteration of Gmail (still in invite-only stage at this writing), promises to revolutionize the inbox (again) and has email marketers worrying about how to respond (again). And, here I am (again), asking email marketers not to get sidetracked by day-to-day distractions like Gmail Inbox, Priority Inbox, Unroll.me, symbols in subject lines and the best time or day to send email. Yes, they might affect inbox or email activity at some point. It's important to understand how the inbox has been evolving since email became a major conversion channel in the 1990s. But …
  • 'Do You Want Fries With That?' -- The Power Of Context
    What makes an email successful? Delivering the right message to the right person at the right time on the right device. As a communicator, I like to think of these attributes as context. Here are some ways to get the context right and improve your program.
  • In 2015, Automation Technologies Will Ease Path To Contextual
    Ready or not, here it comes. A wave of marketing that has been growing for years -- contextual marketing -- will reach new heights in 2015. If your organization does not have the ability to capture and leverage a significant amount of data for personalizing and "right-timing" your customer communications -- including data relevant to the current state of the customer (location, device, environment, past behaviors, etc.) -- you risk fatiguing your customers with non-relevant messaging and falling behind competitors who are doing it right.
  • Mobile Messages: Email, Text Or In-App?
    With the rise of mobile communications, we are in the midst of yet another sea change in the process of sending electronic messages. But the change is more than just style; even the nature of electronic messaging is expanding for mobile users. Besides traditional email and its format of recipient, sender, subject, and message body, we now have text messaging and in-app communications as vehicles for electronic communications, each with its own strengths. For companies communicating with their customers, the new challenge is determining which of these forms is best suited for their marketing communication tasks.
  • Fighting Marketing Fatigue: Proof You Can Increase Message Frequency And Still Win
    Digital marketers are under pressure to increase the number of messages in order to drive revenue. But can we deliver all these messages and do it in a way that increases conversions and reduces marketing fatigue?
  • Peak Pumpkin Spice
    The National Retail Federation reports Americans will spend $7.4 billion on Halloween costumes, candy and decorations in 2014, a bit up from 2013. As is the case with retail holiday trends in general, Halloween shopping is starting earlier and earlier. According to a survey done by NRF, over 35% began shopping for Halloween before Oct. 1, and another 43% in the first few weeks of October.
  • Make Your B2B Emails More H2H (Human to Human)
    Many B2B emails I receive begin with "Dear Loren." This beginning promises that the rest of the email will have content highly personalized to my company demographics (firmagraphics) and business needs, based on my behavior and engagement with marketing content. Not.
  • Neglected Email Marketing Tools
    Over the course of a lengthy career in email, I have encountered more than my fair share of email RFPs. Contained within those documents are two indisputable truths: 1) Much of the RFP is not about email at all. 2) A large portion of the request focuses on advanced features and functionality that the marketer will never use.
  • Then & Now: Mobile & Email Marketing Predictions
    I love reading those articles that compare 20thcentury science fiction to our modern world. This week, I stumbled across a list of author Isaac Asimov's 1964 predictions for 2014. While we're still not colonizing the moon, Asimov was pretty spot-on in the majority of predictions, including his descriptions of some of today's mobile technology. Since it's that time of year when we marketers like to start opining our predictions for the coming year, I thought it would be a fun exercise to take a look back at the mobile predictions of the past - with a focus on their implications …
  • This Year's Email Marketing Twists: Holiday Predictions
    Behind the sounds of witches cackling and batwings flapping, I can already hear the faint jingling of Christmas bells. Honestly, it's not all that faint. The holiday season is already showing up in aisles at stores like Costco and in inboxes from brands like Toys "R" Us, Ikea, Sony, Hanna Andersson, Sephora, and The Shopping Channel. Every holiday season is a little different. Here are my thoughts on how the email marketing holiday season will be different this year.
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