• Getting the right email address
  how might you persuade would-be subscribers to give you the address they pay most attention to?
  (tags: list_growth)
• AOL EWL: low complaints no longer enough – Word to the Wise
  The AOL Enhanced Whitelist is for those senders that have very good practices. Senders on the EWL not only get their mail delivered to the inbox, but also have links and images enabled by default. Placement on the EWL is done solely on the basis of mail performance and only the best senders get on the list.
  (tags: aol deliverability whitelisting)
• Spam is a Perception- Mine
  Chris Brogan says: "If you push unwanted messages into my face over and over again, you’re the enemy. And I don’t mean ME specifically, I mean people. I’m showing you the receiving end of what some of us call marketing."
  (tags: spam permission)

• Retail Email Guide to Multichannel Engagement: Executive Summary
  this guide examines the ways that email marketing has been used to support other channels by the top online retailers. It highlights tactics and standout examples of retailers using email to promote social media, mobile, stores, direct mail, online, and TV and online video.
  (tags: study)
• AOL's Nightmare Before Christmas guest post - Anna Laments
  fun poem about holiday email overload :)
  (tags: fun)

Email monetization provides publishers, advertisers and audiences with a modern method of driving revenue, new customer growth and knowledge of new products previously only available via print ads and television.

The recently released “IAB Email Monetization Strategies” seeks to explain how email monetization works, present best practices and serve as a resource for publishers and marketers who wish to take advantage of email, which is one of the most effective direct and brand marketing mediums.

The recommendations outlined in this document offer best practices and advice for:

• Advertisers
  • Leveraging email newsletters to reach a valuable audience
  • Using the email channel to test offers and promotions
  • Driving sales and site registration through stand alone email advertising
  • Criteria for choosing a email publisher
  • Emerging trend of video in email campaigns
• Publishers
  • Revenue opportunities through sponsorship and ad units in email newsletters
  • Pricing models for email monetization
  • Inventory management
  • Data collection
  • Developing a video email campaign

Also check out these IAB docs:

• IAB Email Guidelines: http://www.iab.net/iab_products_and_industry_services/508676/508905/1458
• IAB Email Campaign Performance Metrics Definitions: http://www.iab.net/iab_products_and_industry_services/508676/508905/79176
• IAB Email Data Management Best Practices: http://www.iab.net/iab_products_and_industry_services/508676/508905/emaildata

• Key Trends in B2B: Webinar Recap
  This post is the Coles-notes version of Brian Walker of Forrester Research’s presentation "Key Trends in B2B eCommerce: From Fulfilling Demand To Creating Demand"
  (tags: b2b)
• Which Type of Landing Experience is Right for You?
  The type of landing experience that’s best for you depends on the situation. Check out these guidelines to make sense out of the options
  (tags: landing_pages)
• Coupons Boost E-Mail Open Rate
  There is a pronounced difference between open rates for e-mails that include a coupon offer and those that do not. Open rates of around 24% to 25% for coupon e-mails dropped to just 16% to 18% for noncoupon campaigns, according to Experian.
  (tags: study)
• Matures Are Prolific E-Mailers
  seniors aged 65 and older ("Matures") have made the Internet an integral part of their everyday lives. In a recent study, 77% report that they shop online. Matures lead all other generational groups when it comes to online activity, 94% regularly using email, 71% go to the Internet to look up health and medical information, 70% read news, and 59% manage their finances and banking. In addition, 47% of online Matures regularly play free online games.
  (tags: study)

• Managing Your Email Subscribers' Expectations During The Holidays | Email Responsibly
  Zappos.com does a great job at managing their email subscribers' expectations – they notified their email subscribers about what they can expect to see in their inbox from Zappos.com this holiday season.
  (tags: cases frequency tactics)
• Eight Tips for Effective E-mail Preheaders
  When you use the preheader to expand on the subject line, add a secondary offer, or emphasize a deadline, you help the reader decide quickly what to do with the message. The easier you make your e-mail to open, read, and interact with, the more valuable it becomes to your subscribers.
  (tags: tactics preheader snippet)
• Design Tip of the Week: Email Rendering in Yahoo!
  Exact Target provides some great tips to consider when building your email campaign in order to create the best experience possible for Yahoo! subscribers.


  (tags: design yahoo)
• Email deliverability resources, sites, services, tools etc.
  Mark Brownlow compiled a list of 192 deliverability resources
  (tags: deliverability)
• Tips for crafting emails that subscribers love to open
  Email forces you to be concise, but "concise" does not exclude "elegant". Inject some life into your messages so that they read like a note from a friend. Always give readers something else to do if they don't want to act on your offer
  (tags: tactics)
• Where does your email really go?
  When you send an email out, though, it may be going to a Yahoo! domain address, then forwarded on to a Gmail domain address and finally rendered in Outlook 2007. What can you do to ensure that your mail has the highest rate of making it to its final destination regardless of the cyber hops in the middle?
  (tags: tactics deliverability list_management)

• More Evidence E-mail’s Not Dead
  Someone forgot to tell small-business owners e-mail is dead. According to a just-released survey done by Hurwitz & Associates on behalf of e-mail service provider Campaigner, 46% of businesses with 20 employees or fewer use e-mail marketing today and of those who don’t, 36% plan to begin doing so in the coming year.
  (tags: study)

• Writing effective email copy - Blog - Campaign Monitor
  In this post Campaign Monitor's Ros Hodgekiss highlights some considerations when writing effective email copy, including tone, personality, keeping it concise, offering value to the reader and testing.
  (tags: copywriting)

• Digital Marketing Mixer Lessons
  33 top digital marketing tips & best quotes of the event
  (tags: events)
• Future of deliverability: 5. Sender reputation and B2B email marketing
  It is true to say that reputation-based filtering plays a smaller role in B2B than it does in B2C. But that doesn't mean reputation is irrelevant in B2B. The idea that B2B deliverability is only about content filtering is a myth. Here are three reasons why B2B marketers also need to worry about their sender reputation.
  (tags: deliverability b2b)
• Cisco Launches WebEx Mail
  What? Another one?
• Email's Antisocial Sin
  Some have referred to what we are observing in social media as a revolution. For marketers, the revolution lies not in the tools, not in the speed, not even in the ability of consumers to communicate with each other. For marketers, the revolution is that the focus of marketing is changing from selling to serving. Good marketing is increasingly less about creating compelling messages and more about providing excellent customer service.
  (tags: strategy)
• Lead-Gen Revamp with Automation and Scoring: 7 Steps to 190% Increase in Sales Conversions
  See how a software company combined segmentation, lead scoring, automated nurturing campaigns and more to develop robust prospect profiles, segment their database and deliver the most relevant information to prospects. Through better lead qualification, they’ve seen their sales conversion rates jump 190%.
  (tags: lead_nurturing segmentation lead_scoring cases)
• Ways To Increase Conversions From Seniors
  how can you help turn seniors' purchase intent into dollars for your business? Some modifications of your emails and online shopping experience can take you a long way towards this goal.
  (tags: seniors design)
• Using Product Reviews to Boost Subscriber Engagement & Conversions
  Bronto's Julie Waite looks at some creative ways you can tie product reviews into your email marketing campaigns, along with some examples…
  (tags: product_reviews engagement)
• MarketingSherpa: New Chart: Email Spending Sped Up as the Economy Slowed
  Email has not only been spared the ax that fell heavily on most marketing budget line items, it seems to have actually benefited from the down economy.
  (tags: study)
• Removing 'Unengaged' Is Key to Deliverability, Too
  If you do nothing to control or re-engage your inactive subscribers, this segment can grow large enough to trigger ISP filtering or blocking. Even your most engaged subscribers wouldn't receive your messages if that happens, because your sender reputation is so poor, your messages won't reach their inboxes. So, your reputation, your deliverability, and ultimately the health of your e-mail program are in jeopardy.
  (tags: deliverability engagement)
• Design Tip of the Week: Email Rendering in Gmail
  Andrea Smith provides some great tips to consider when building your email campaign in order to create the best experience possible for Gmail subscribers.


  (tags: design gmail)

• Email software popularity: 5 lessons for your list
  Mark Brownlow explains why there is value to knowing exactly where your emails are viewed
  (tags: analysis metrics design email_clients)

• Gen Y Holds Tight to E-Mail and Texting - eMarketer
  More than one-quarter of college students told the Participatory Marketing Network and Pace University’s Lubin School of Business’ IDM Lab that e-mail was the activity they were least likely to give up for a week—far ahead of the 9% who said they couldn’t live without social networks.
  (tags: study)
• MarketingSherpa: New Chart: Do Email Tactics That Take More Work Get a Bigger Payoff?
  (tags: study)
• I need IP addresses for reputation
  Reputation is tied to sending IP address, but it’s also affected by volume of emails received from that IP address, and the consistency of volume. If a customer is only sending a few hundred emails a week to any given receiver ISP or they’re only mailing monthly then they won’t be able to maintain much of a positive reputation, simply because they’re too small to keep track of or because they mail so infrequently that each time they mail the receiving ISP will have forgotten about their previous mailings. In those cases the sender will be treated much the same as a new sender from a given IP address (neutral, at best, maybe poorly). For those cases a customer is likely to get better delivery rates if their mail is sent through an IP address pool that sends enough email overall to be noticed and tracked by receiving ISPs.
  (tags: deliverability reputation)
• Optimise your email campaign with A/B split testing
  The key to A/B split testing in email is patience. Wait as long as you can to analyse results and you're more likely to get a true picture of what will happen when you roll out your eventual email campaign.
  (tags: testing)

• How to Use Transactional Messages to Boost Revenue & Build Relationships
  Kristen Gregory explains how you can take your transactional emails to the next level.
  (tags: transactional_emails)
• E-mail Not Dead Yet: Study
  Sixty two percent of respondents to a recent survey commission by marketing software firm smartFOCUS reportedly said e-mail was their preferred channel for receiving marketing messages.

  Direct mail—another marketing medium that’s supposedly gasping for air—came in at No. 2, with 23% of respondents saying it was their preferred channel for receiving marketing messages.

  Just 13% said they preferred receiving marketing messages via social media, according to smartFOCUS.

  
  
  (tags: study)
  
  

• Digital Marketing Factbook: A Glimpse Inside
  The Digital Marketing Factbook includes chapters on email, search, and social media—with 144 pages of findings, including 110 charts and graphs from 60+ sources. Check it out!
  (tags: study)