How to use financial data to win over stakeholders to your email marketing strategy

LinkedIn hosts 2.7 million+ profiles for people with 'Email Marketing' skills. Our field is growing constantly growing in what to me, is inarguably one of the most versatile and creative areas of digital marketing. Whilst there are some amazing resources, such as Litmus who write the gospel for designers and coders, we wanted to create something focused on the the challenges of the email marketing manager.

We had an itch. We spoke to a lot of people who had this itch too. We wanted to scratch it. Thus, the No BS Email Marketing guide was born. 

In Edition One we hired nine Email Marketers across a range of industries. From Financial Service Tech to Retail, MMORPG to…

Don't neglect your unsubscribing process

Getting your email unsubscribe process right is critical to your email marketing success. But, why? Surely concentrating your efforts on subscribers who have decided that they want to leave your list is time wasted. Wouldn't you be better off focusing your efforts on improving emails to those just entering the funnel, rather than those electing to drop out of it? We've been taking a look at best practices for managing email unsubscribes in a new research report on the State of Email Unsubscribing 2016 which we have published with Alchemy Worx. It reports on how retailers are managing unsubscribes, and then goes on to recommend best practice as well as mistakes to avoid. There are a number of  reasons why you need to get your unsubscribe process right, and it's not just about winning back customers. First of all consider these key points: Unsubscribing isn't a failure or even a permanent state for your…

New research on how email readers interact with marketing emails

Those of you familiar with the latest email marketing stats will already know how important 'mobile opens' are. In fact, emails opened on smartphones and tablets make up over half of all emails opened over the last three years according to a new report from Yesmail. This research makes a compelling case for upgrading to responsive email designs, or if you already have them, for optimising them. The importance of mobile email readership makes responsive email design more crucial than ever, because users expect attractive emails across devices, and are unlikely to click through on an email which looks poorly formatted because wasn't designed to appear on a mobile device.

Responsive design is key for boosting mobile clicks

Regardless of whether your emails have responsive designs, over half your email opens will be happening on mobile devices. However, if you don't have responsive designs, most…

Use these 12 insights from ground-breaking eye-tracking research to improve your email campaigns on mobile

How much do you know about how your subscribers really perceive your emails on mobile? If the answer is not much then it’s probably time to optimise: 70% of all emails are now opened on mobile and scrolling on a touchscreen is a completely different experience to using a desktop. Users can interact with content anywhere and anytime and their location, the lighting, sounds, distractions etc. will all have an impact on how our messages are perceived. Additionally, a study by Litmus found that 80% of people will delete an email that doesn't look good on their mobile device. Although that is worrying, the good news is that there are some very simple changes that you can make to your campaigns to avoid them…

Email has never been so important to marketers

Email marketing is a key part of any digital marketing strategy, and often is one of the most powerful tools for delivering ROI. New research on the chalenges of email marketing from the DMA shows that, increasingly, it is being conducted in-house, rather than left to an agency. However, marketers continue to struggle with measuring ROI and often suffer from a lack of useful data on customers. Take a look at this new infographic from the DMA to see the results of their recent results of their email marketing research. …

The best time to send depends on the content as well as the audience

As a product and/or service provider, one way of reaching your customers is through email. It is one of the least expensive methods of connecting with your clients. You create a well-crafted message and simply send them to your recipients. Then, you sit tight and wait for your recipients to respond back.

Sounds easy right?

Well, it’s not that simple. People get bombarded by a lot of emails every single day and most of them get overlooked. Your email message can be one of them.

Think about this; you’re not the only business sending emails to your clients. You might be competing with thousands of other businesses for a single person’s attention. Plus, you might be competing with your recipient’s family and friends for attention.

Then, how will you place…

I interviewed Lauren Smith from Litmus, the email analytics software provider about some of the latest changes in the email marketing industry and what marketers can do to make the most of them

Email is consistently ranked among the most effective forms of digital marketing. The DMA's 2015 national email client report found that email has an average ROI of £38 for each £1 spent, which is spectacularly high. Given its effectiveness, email marketing is used by all kinds of businesses, from micro-businesses to the very biggest. To make the most of it you need to keep up to date with all the latest changes to platforms and tactics, which shift rapidly as ESPs launch new ways to view mail and mobile and desktop operating systems change the ways certain elements are displayed.

To help keep your email marketing efforts up to date, I interviewed Lauren Smith from Litmus, who are experts…

Use these 5 ideas to give your promotional emails a boost

Promotional email is a powerful channel when it comes to driving e-commerce sales - the Custora Ecommerce Pulse shows marketing emails are the third biggest driver of online sales after Search marketing. This makes it the biggest driver for customer sales and way ahead of social media But, sadly, most email marketers aren't making the most out of this channel. When it comes to creating these campaigns, most marketers spend a lot of time on the design and copy of these emails. Though this is a good approach and will yield good results, this will only get you so far. If you don’t know what compels your recipients to click through and buy your products, you're not going to get the desired results. To find out which elements work for your audience and which are unsuccessful, you need to A/B test…

Ensure your email isn't unloved, underestimated or untapped

I feel that often, charities are missing a trick or two with email. Due to its ubiquity and apparent cheapness, it is often not given the credit it is due. There are clear merits for charities using email, it is cost effective, it can be well-targeted and can enhance both real life and online experiences.

Barriers for lack of email marketing with charities

Looking at this in more detail, what are the barriers to success for charities running successful email programmes? Some of the reasons for this are: Email is not perceived as a valuable asset, particularly at senior level, so it is not given the staff and budget required to work successfully. Lack of joined-up thinking – often the email programme is run by the communications team but the valuable understanding of the audiences is not well understood (as this knowledge lies usually with the services and…

Improving re-engagement emails to help bring a dead email list to life

According to MarketingSherpa, on average, marketers lose 25% of their email list every year. HubSpot have also modelled email database decay and suggest a similar figure if you don't take action. Essentially, subscribers stop engaging with your brand which results in fewer clicks and unsubscribes meaning that the number of active email subscribers falls. Added to this, the role of subscribed yet unengaged consumers can be crucial when it comes to hurting the inbox placement rates, which can ultimately lead you to spam folders. So, what to do when your holy emails are being flagged as this hex called spam? Re-engagement emails- the divine jackfruit can act as an elixir to bring your dead email list to life. Due to its inherent specification, re-engagement emails only target inactive consumers that give your email campaigns an accurate perspective. According to the Stats…