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Case Study: 30 Percent Increase in Email List Growth
"moving the sign-up call to action above the fold resulted in 30% increase in email sign-ups and a 27% increase in revenue on the test page"
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Want Effective Calls to Action? Use 'Action Trains'
"getting people to take the action you want them to take. But once they have taken an action, getting them to take yet another action becomes much easier."
Mar 14, 2013
Recommended Reading 03/14/2013
Posted by Tamara Gielen on Mar 14, 2013 | Permalink
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Comments (1)
Mar 09, 2013
Recommended Reading 03/09/2013
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E-mail Marketing - E-mail produces 7% more sales per message in Q4 - Internet Retailer
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6 Strategies for Writing Effective Web Copy | Powered by Search
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MarketingSherpa Email Summit 2013 Wrap-up: Top 5 takeaways for email marketers
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"Email Design Ideas from ExactTarget to Steal, Test & Make Your Own."
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Email blacklisting: 5 stages to recovery
"Due to an increase in IP listings as of the first of the year, there has been quite a lot of conversation lately around the Spamhaus blacklist. I would like to share with you, what I call the “five stages to recovery” after an email blacklisting."
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Why The Fold Is A Myth - And Where To Actually Put Your Calls To Action
"The issue isn’t whether the call to action is visible when your prospect first arrives. The issue is whether your call to action is visible at the point where your prospect has become convinced to take action."
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6 Variables To Test On Your Call-To-Action Buttons
"Done right, the call-to-action button can act as a visual attention-getter that, when paired with a compelling offer, gets people eager to act. But some users are finding that how they create that call-to-action button – and even the text they use – can have a serious impact on click-throughs."
Posted by Tamara Gielen on Mar 09, 2013 | Permalink
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Comments (1)
Mar 02, 2013
Recommended Reading 03/02/2013
Posted by Tamara Gielen on Mar 02, 2013 | Permalink
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Comments (0)
Mar 01, 2013
Recommended Reading 03/01/2013
Posted by Tamara Gielen on Mar 01, 2013 | Permalink
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Comments (0)
Feb 27, 2013
Recommended Reading 02/27/2013
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3 Neuromarketing Considerations For Landing Page Optimization
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MediaPost Publications Why (And How) Marketers Should Follow DMARC 02/25/2013
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What will kill email? - Christopher S. Penn : Awaken Your Superhero
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68% of people use their smartphone for email, 26% for shopping | Econsultancy
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To Send or Not to Send an Email…That Is the Question
"There is an ongoing debate among email marketers that is focused around the recipients you should either include or exclude from your mailing. There are basically two schools of thought: 1) Get to a 1:1 state and 2) Send away -- Oddly enough, both have some merit, and are likely the correct answer to a very specific situation within your mailing portfolio, but as a broad stroke approach either could fail on its own. Let's dig into the pros and cons of these very real scenarios."
Posted by Tamara Gielen on Feb 27, 2013 | Permalink
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Comments (0)
Feb 25, 2013
Recommended Reading 02/25/2013
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Email Preferred Communication Channel; Commands More Clicks & ROI
"Not only was email the most popular online activity of 2012, but it also has higher click-through rates, conversion rates and ROI than other channels. And this trend is only going to continue — 56% of marketers plan to increase their email marketing budgets this year, which makes email the leading source of marketing investments."
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Hick's Law In Marketing | Is It Damaging Your Landing Page Results?
"If you want more orders, you need to provide as many ways as possible for prospects to say YES!"
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"The following questions can help you decide whether to test pop-overs for your email program. "
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Email Copywriting: How a change in tone increased lead inquiry by 349%
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MediaPost Publications DMARC: Flipping A Switch To Fight Email Fraud 02/19/2013
"Today, thanks to widespread adoption by the mailbox provider community, DMARC covers more than 80% of consumer mailboxes in the U.S. and more than 60% of consumer mailboxes globally. So more than 2 billion mailboxes fall under DMARC’s protection, allowing marketers to stop a huge portion of the email fraud sent under their names, instantly."
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8 things you should watch out for when crafting a new campaign
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How to plan event-triggered automated email campaigns
"The great benefits of event-triggered e-mails is that once set up and tested for effectiveness, they are a low cost method of boosting response. You can let the technology take the strain since there are too many triggers and layers of segmentation to manage manually. "
Posted by Tamara Gielen on Feb 25, 2013 | Permalink
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Comments (0)
Feb 21, 2013
Recommended Reading 02/21/2013
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3 Long-Form Copywriting Tricks You Should Steal
"did you know that some of the highest-converting short copy on the web today is based on simple long-copy principles? True story. So let’s take a look at just 3 landing page copywriting tricks you can steal from long copy today – and test on your own short-copy landing page."
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How to use your Facebook page to build your nonprofit's email list
Posted by Tamara Gielen on Feb 21, 2013 | Permalink
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Comments (0)
Feb 19, 2013
Recommended Reading 02/19/2013
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How Quibb Keeps Daily Email Open Rates between 50% and 70%
"There are several tactics that have helped to maintain these open rates over time, along with some tweaks and adjustments that have worked well to keep them high over the past few months. Let’s dive in to what has worked…"
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How Your Customers Actually Read Your Emails
"Have you ever thought about how your customers actually read your emails? As in, how they approach them… mentally? How important is the subject line? Do headings in emails matter? Which links are customers most likely to click? Are links in body content distracting? Are images important?"
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The Finer Points of Styled Alt Tags
"A lot of people don’t realize that it is also possible to add style attributes to alt tags just like any other text. Styled alt tags don’t work in every email viewer, but when they do, they increase the visual dynamics of a mailing considerably."
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Choosing a Benchmark for Your Email Marketing Efforts
"There are two high types of benchmarks: internal, based on the past performance of your own email campaigns; and external, based on what others in the industry are seeing. Here are tips for identifying and using both."
Posted by Tamara Gielen on Feb 19, 2013 | Permalink
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Comments (0)
Feb 16, 2013
Recommended Reading 02/16/2013
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6 lessons you can learn from Amazon’s killer email marketing
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Driving Better Email Response: What makes subscribers say YES?
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10 Tips to Craft the Perfect Email Subject Line
"10 tips to capture readers interest and improve your open rate:"
Posted by Tamara Gielen on Feb 16, 2013 | Permalink
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Comments (0)
Feb 15, 2013
Recommended Reading 02/15/2013
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All the deliverability resources you'll ever need :)
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The Ultimate Visual Marketing Guide
"while visualizations can be a very powerful tool for a HUGE variety of niches, you need to be measuring the impact on your bottom line, that is, more sales, more leads, and more of the right traffic to your site. Otherwise, your just wasting your time on pretty pictures."
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9 clever ways to collect those all important emails without coming off as too pushy to new readers.
Posted by Tamara Gielen on Feb 15, 2013 | Permalink
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Comments (0)
Feb 14, 2013
Recommended Reading 02/14/2013
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Browse Abandonment Emails: How You Can Use Them to Bring Browsers Back to Buy
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3 Questions to Drive Your Multiscreen Email Design Decisions
"before you decide to adopt a responsive, screen-agnostic or other design approach, it’s important to have a deep understanding of what’s actually going on with your multiscreen-using subscribers. Following are three analytics questions to consider:"
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Protecting Your Brand From Phishing: How to Create a DKIM Record
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How to resend an email to non-openers the smart way
if you are going to resend an email to non-openers, let’s explore some tips for getting the most out of it.
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Why Your Customer Testimonials Are NOT Working
" social proof is the new marketing. It’s a powerful marketing tool that when done correctly can lead to conversions as high as 68.7%. Customer testimonials are an essential part of social proof... However, your customer testimonials may actually be hurting your conversions by taking up valuable real estate on your website if they’re not connecting or aspiring your audience."
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31% of marketers don’t know their mobile email open rate
"Mobile forces you to focus. Mobile devices require … teams to focus on only the most important data and actions. … There simply isn’t room in a 320 by 480 pixel screen for extraneous, unnecessary elements. You have to prioritize. So when a team designs mobile first, the end result is an experience focused on the key tasks users want to accomplish without the extraneous detours and general interface debris that litter today’s desktop-accessed websites. That’s good user experience and good for business."
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At DMA's Email Evolution: Debates on metrics, list-building get lively
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Protecting Your Brand From Phishing: How to create your SPF record
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What makes content go viral: The anatomy of a post that got over 500,000 likes
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For Email, Users Reach for the iPad
" Perion, a developer of email client software, surveyed 4,400 US iPad users on their emailing habits during the last six months of 2012 and found that the devices are becoming the preferred place to read and send emails"
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Marketing Research Chart: Analytics usage for message creation
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15 Important Tips To Help You Keep Your Customers
"our 15 favorite tips (backed by academic research and case studies) on increasing customer loyalty, divided into five easy-to-browse sections: Communication, Selling, Reciprocity, Support, and Loyalty Programs."
Posted by Tamara Gielen on Feb 14, 2013 | Permalink
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Comments (0)
Feb 13, 2013
Recommended Reading 02/13/2013
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Facebook Puts A Price On Permission
"The program, which is in beta, allows individuals to pay $1 to send someone outside of their network a message and have it land in the recipient's inbox instead of the junk-collecting black hole-like “Other” folder."
Posted by Tamara Gielen on Feb 13, 2013 | Permalink
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Comments (0)
Feb 12, 2013
Video: Tamara Gielen on Email Trends for 2013
I was invited to be the keynote speaker at the German Email Expo in Frankfurt last week. Here's a video of an interview in which I talk about trends for 2013. Check it out:
I just wish they had cut out the last few seconds ;-)
Posted by Tamara Gielen on Feb 12, 2013 in Trends | Permalink
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Comments (3)
3 Startup Mistakes to Avoid in Email Marketing
A new business is born every 5 seconds in the U.S. according to the Startup Ecosytem Report 2012 by Startup Genome. Of them, 45% last only 6 months before closing their doors, and only 1 in 12 businesses succeed and stay in the market.
Why is this figure so high? 20% of startups fail because of poorly thought out, or lack of, marketing activities. As email marketing is a simple and cost effective method providing high ROI, startup marketers often say ‘YES’ to email marketing, although often they also make mistakes. So, what are they and how can they be avoided?
1. Waiting too long for campaigns
The best thing about startups is that they have the possibility to begin marketing activities with the very first client. Building an email database can take some time, especially if you are an unknown newcomer.
If there are only a few subscribers within the first weeks or months, you may think that sending email campaigns is not worth it. But the thing is that subscribers may soon forget you if you don’t remind them about yourself often enough. Enter into email marketing with well thought out and regular campaigns - even for small audiences. After all, they are your first customers and the basis of your business.
Take advantage of the bundles of startup tool-kits with particularly favorable offers provided by business incubators. Several ESPs also offer free mailing for startups. For example, Mailchimp is known by its freemium approach to startups and the Forever Free plan as long as you have fewer than 2,000 subscribers. Mailigen recently launched its Epic Free email marketing account that allows you to grow your database up to 5,000 subscribers and use free mailing forever.
2. Forgetting about the first engagement
If you have planned email campaigns on a regular basis within your marketing strategy, new subscribers will simply join your list and start receiving regular news and offers. They can sign up the next day or after a month, depending on your campaign schedule.
However, a problem may occur similar to the one mentioned above, that is, even if subscribers remember you, they may misperceive your message because they have not been properly introduced to your company. Get started with a series of autoresponders that engages in your brand little by little, for example, a thank you email right after signing up or a reminding email about the end of the trial period.
3. Leaving email marketing in solitude
If you are a startup marketer, email marketing most likely is not the only marketing method you have started to undertake. Email marketing is a long-term solution for building trusted relationships with your audience, and it fits perfectly into the marketing mix of other strategies.
One of the most popular and must-have marketing methods used by startups is social networking. Promote actively both sign up forms and sent campaigns via social media. In addition, take advantage of mobile marketing. Start email and SMS list building at once in order to kickstart your new business with complete integrated marketing.
When done well, email marketing brings one of the highest ROI within other marketing strategies. Go ahead with a smart start. Prepare autoresponders and the first campaign before you even start to promote subscription and link it with other marketing tools in a common strategy. Wishing you a great start with the new business!
This is a guest post by Liga Bizune, Public Relations Manager of Mailigen.
Posted by Liga Bizune on Feb 12, 2013 in Email Tactics, Getting started | Permalink
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Comments (2)
Recommended Reading 02/12/2013
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The challenge of Gmail – Word to the Wise
"Gmail’s current filtering scheme seems designed to focus on domain reputation and minimize the impact of IP reputation."
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Embedded image support in HTML email
"embedded images in email do not evade image blocking. In the case of 'the Outlooks'1 above, not only were the images blocked, but they largely remained blocked, even when the other images in a newsletter were downloaded. The majority of email clients which reliably display embedded images (being Apple and iOS Mail) don't block images by default, making this technique redundant."
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Smartphone owners more likely to read emails than make calls -tg
"The 2013 Digital Publishing Report by Adobe notes that 79% of smarthphone owners use their device for email, while making phone calls came in second at 78%. This makes mobile email the prime activity for smartphone owners."
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3 Secrets to Maintaining Superior Newsletter Click-Through Rates -tg
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Online Copywriting that Converts – 5 Lessons from 250 A/B Tests -tg
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A Simple A/B Test that Generated a 31.54% Lift in Sign-ups [Case Study] -tg
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Email Marketing: 98% conversion rate of qualified leads thanks to email education drip campaign -tg
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How to Write the Perfect Email Subject Line [Infographic] -tg
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Mobile device ergonomics and links in email newsletters -tg
"When it comes to link and button placement in email newsletters, most of the decision-making seems to revolve around 'where they can be seen'. However, given the popularity of mobile email clients, should we also consider 'where they can be tapped'?"
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5 Automated Message Don'ts -tg
"Automated messages work in the background with minimal maintenance, enhance the customer experience, and generate a lot of sales. That trifecta should command enough respect from marketers to make sure they are functioning properly, however, triggered messages are frequently ignored once they are up-and-running. Whether you are just launching automated messages or you have had them in place for years, you need to make sure you are avoiding these five common mistakes."
Posted by Tamara Gielen on Feb 12, 2013 | Permalink
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Comments (0)
Feb 11, 2013
Recommended Reading 02/11/2013
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The Retail Email Blog: Alert: New Hotmail Rendering Issue -tg
"Since Outlook 2007 & 2010 supports style tags we are recommending to use a class for the margin for Outlook that overrides the padding with !important."
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Google Doubles Down on Weak DKIM Keys: What You Need to Do Now to be Compliant -tg
"Google is currently failing emails sent to Gmail accounts if they are signed with a 512-bit key or less. Now there is evidence that Google is starting to enforce their policy of accepting DKIM keys of 1024-bit or higher."
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Monster’s Fluid Layout Stands Out Among Job Search Emails -tg
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30 Ways to Segment and Target Your Email Contact List -tg
"According to a recent infographic from Monetate, 30% of marketers who segmented their email lists experienced higher open rates and 50% experienced higher click rates. "
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8 things that make your mail look like spam -tg
"There are a lot of things that spamware does that is different from a lot of standard MTAs. Here are a list of things that may make your mail look like it is running spamware to a receiving server."
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4 Tips to Optimize Your Emails for Mobile -tg
"Currently, there’s no such thing as “mobile email standards.” But that doesn’t mean can just wing it—not when 70% of consumers say they delete emails immediately if they don’t render well on their mobile device.
The more you know about what limitations exist, the better off you’ll be. Here are some quick tips to get you headed in the right direction:"
Posted by Tamara Gielen on Feb 11, 2013 | Permalink
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Comments (0)
Feb 09, 2013
Recommended Reading 02/09/2013
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Survey Shows B2B Marketers Will Prioritize Email Marketing, SEO, Social Media in 2013 -tg
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Holy Grail of eCommerce Conversion Optimization - 91 Point Checklist and Infographic -tg
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How to Get Your Boss to Care About Content Marketing -tg
"Whether you're selling content marketing to the C-Suite, your manager, a client, or even trying to convince yourself, here is everything you need to make a compelling argument and be on your way to content marketing success."
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Thrillist Makes Newsletter Mobile-Friendly -tg
"A big part of that effort has been simplifying things for the mobile environment. In practice it has meant tailoring images to the smaller format, reducing the amount of text and stripping out extra buttons that tend to clutter up the mobile screen."
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Can Removing Headers from Your Emails Increase Conversions? -tg
"By removing the header image from the top of the email you can leave your email with a CTA preheader, navigation bar (hopefully bulletproof) and the content itself. You are now using more of that prime real estate of an email to convey your message. Let's take a look at a couple of examples."
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23 horizontal scrolling emails -tg
"Horizontal emails inspire strong feelings among designers. Depending which side you come down on, horizontal emails are either cutting edge and artistic or counter-intuitive and pretentious. Here's twenty-three rare, outside-of-the-box, experimental horizontal emails."
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The death of Email Marketing CPM and why that is great for you -tg
Posted by Tamara Gielen on Feb 09, 2013 | Permalink
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Comments (0)
Feb 08, 2013
Recommended Reading 02/08/2013
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Survey Shows B2B Marketers Will Prioritize Email Marketing, SEO, Social Media in 2013 -tg
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Holy Grail of eCommerce Conversion Optimization - 91 Point Checklist and Infographic -tg
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How to Get Your Boss to Care About Content Marketing -tg
"Whether you're selling content marketing to the C-Suite, your manager, a client, or even trying to convince yourself, here is everything you need to make a compelling argument and be on your way to content marketing success."
-
Thrillist Makes Newsletter Mobile-Friendly -tg
"A big part of that effort has been simplifying things for the mobile environment. In practice it has meant tailoring images to the smaller format, reducing the amount of text and stripping out extra buttons that tend to clutter up the mobile screen."
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Can Removing Headers from Your Emails Increase Conversions? -tg
"By removing the header image from the top of the email you can leave your email with a CTA preheader, navigation bar (hopefully bulletproof) and the content itself. You are now using more of that prime real estate of an email to convey your message. Let's take a look at a couple of examples."
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23 horizontal scrolling emails -tg
"Horizontal emails inspire strong feelings among designers. Depending which side you come down on, horizontal emails are either cutting edge and artistic or counter-intuitive and pretentious. Here's twenty-three rare, outside-of-the-box, experimental horizontal emails."
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The death of Email Marketing CPM and why that is great for you -tg
Posted by Tamara Gielen on Feb 08, 2013 | Permalink
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Comments (0)
Dec 16, 2012
Recommended Reading (weekly)
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The Science Behind Those Obama Campaign E-Mails -tg
"Most of the $690 million Obama raised online came from fundraising e-mails. During the campaign, Obama’s staff wouldn’t answer questions about them or the alchemy that made them so successful. Now, with the election over, they’re opening the black box."
Posted by Tamara Gielen on Dec 16, 2012 | Permalink
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Comments (0)
Dec 09, 2012
Recommended Reading (weekly)
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Email Design Tip: The Fold & Your Call To Action -tg
Our results showed that the calls-to-action above the fold were clicked on more often than those below the fold in 78% of the emails tested. Within the emails, above-the-fold calls-to-action received an average of 13% more clicks than their below-the-fold counterparts.
Posted by Tamara Gielen on Dec 09, 2012 | Permalink
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Comments (0)
This blog offers an "I read so you don't have to" service to its readers. If you want to stay up to date on the latest trends and best practices in email marketing, but you don't have the time to wade through hundreds of articles to find the one that actually provides value to you, then subscribe to this blog's weekly newsletter:
About Tamara Gielen
Tamara Gielen is an independent email and digital direct marketing
consultant with over 10 years of experience in online, email and direct marketing. Whether you are just starting with email marketing or you are ready to take email marketing to the next level in your organization, Tamara offers training, coaching and consulting services to help you achieve the best results possible. For more information, visit www.PlanToEngage.com.
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