works for mobile

Carol's Daughter is really nailing the mobile-enabled emails.
Simple message, simple graphics, single call-to-action button that's large enough for a chubby finger to hit on a phone or tablet.

7/17/2013 example:

content is king

best practices

5 ways to segment your email marketing list

Industry or role: level in the company if it's B2B, category if it's B2C
Geography: regional promotional opportunities
General interests: based on user interaction, e.g. downloads or purchases
Behavior: use analytics of users' browse, click, forward, etc
Brand Advocates: nurture best customer relationships

Original piece at Business2Community.com
Thanks, Karen Frascese.

volvo viral

There's a lot of data to suggest that marketing email read rates, click rates and conversion are higher when companies use video.  Here's a great one from Volvo that earned more than 6M views in the first week.



scoop on video + email study by the Relevancy Group from DazeInfo and Warc

for the little guys too

Constant Contact's survey of small business customers indicates it's not only large businesses that benefit from email marketing programs.

57% of respondents said that are trying to expand their email subscriber lists "at all times." 

When pushed to describe why it was important for them to increase their email lists:

• 44% indicated the importance of encouraging repeat business

• 39% said that email marketing helps customer relationship building

• 12% reported that email marketing improves customers for referrals

92% small businesses capture opt-in email addresses is through sign-up forms on the company website, 64% through direct requests, 46% via Facebook sign-ups, and 35% use sign-up sheets at point-of-sale.

three email stats for today

1. Emails that include social sharing buttons have a click-through rate 115% higher than those do not.
2. 63% of Americans will close or delete an email not optimized for mobile
3. Subscribers read 14% of the messages promising percentage-based savings in the subject line, while reading 12% of those promising dollar based savings in the subject line.

Ka-Pow!

Addtional wiz-bang facts available at Business2Community...

new gmail: potential implications for marketers

Gmail is currently rolling out a new sorting format for messages.  It will now sort messages by social, primary, updates and "promotions," the last carrying the greatest implications for marketers.  Marketing messages can now land in the Promotions tab rather than the standard inbox, which could affect open rates.  Apparently, plain text messages will continue to land in the Primary inbox, which is an option.  As usual: keep them relevant and strong because there's always a great deal of competition for attention.