2024 taught me 4 big lessons

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As Q4 and the holiday madness swings into high gear, I want to look back at everything I've learned in the last 12 months, at how that shaped our business and my conversations with marketers and executives, and how it will affect our communal outlook and planning for 2025 and beyond....

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From Email to Omnichannel: Evolving our role in a changing marketing landscape

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Summary Have you noticed a shift in the email marketing landscape? As the lines blur between digital channels, channel experts are being asked to deliver more than just great email campaigns — they’re now expected to create unified, seamless experiences across web, social, SMS, and more. This blog dives into the...

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Beyond the Inbox – Creating synergy with Email and SMS

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Why adding SMS to your Email Marketing Journey is a good thing I would have rolled my eyes a year ago if you had told me I would write a blog about adding SMS to the mix. But today, my view has shifted. SMS, like email, is a great retention channel....

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2024 State of ESP Buyers’ Top Challenges and Wants

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This survey marks the 4th year that Only Influencers and Email Connect have conducted a brief survey with brands. The first three years we focused primary on RFPs and email marketers’ potential plans to switch vendors in the upcoming year. This year we decided to take the focus off of RFPs,...

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Where is the Line When it Comes to AI Usage Disclosure?

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Regardless of whether you are a believer that AI is going to revolutionize every industry for the better or a skeptic who sees AI as a threat to original content creation and a host of other ‘human’ roles, I think everyone agrees that AI is here to stay. In the email...

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Seeing The Future Through Blurred I’s

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Picture this scenario: The marketing team at your scrappy little company huddles for days hashing out the brand guidelines for a critical new product launch. The results, everyone agrees, are brilliant. The name is snappy, memorable and perfect. The tag line says it all. With all-hands-on-deck intensity everything quickly goes public...

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Improving the context of AI-generated emails

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In our previous article , we explored how we’ve automated email production with GenAI. While we’ve embraced the technology, we’re still building trust in the content of AI-generated emails. This has led us to seek ways to further improve that content, recognizing that better context significantly enhances email effectiveness. What can...

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LLMs, CRM, & Analytics: Email Marketing's Power Trio

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Picture this: LLMs, your CRM, and your analytics platforms, all working together in perfect harmony. It's like having a marketing supergroup, each member bringing their own unique skills to the table. LLMs crank out personalized email copy that's so good, it feels like it was written just for you. Your CRM...

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Why Email Marketers Shouldn’t Bother Fighting the Power

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As an email marketer, it can feel like bad things are always happening to us. Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection making it much more difficult to adhere to inbox providers own rules around emailing only engaged subscribers Apple’s Link Tracking Protection making conversion tracking harder for some senders Gmail’s policy of Automatic...

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Want more event attendees? Test your email invitation!

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I just got results back from a test we ran on the email invitations we send to subscribers on our Email & More, A Q&A with ... list, and I wanted to share them with you, my fellow Only Influencers, because so many of us sponsor webinar series and other events....

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A Brief History of Personalization: From the General Store to Generative AI

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Much of my career has been devoted to the exploration of personalization. Searching for answers to one essential question: How we make our content, our marketing, our service, and our products more relevant and more personal? Twenty or so years ago, about midway in my career, I published a book on...

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11 Tips for Crafting an Effective Speaking Proposal and Session Description

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As programming chair for Email Innovations World since 2020, I’ve reviewed a lot of proposals to speak. And as someone who’s been speaking at industry conferences for more than 20 years, I’ve probably written nearly as many as I’ve reviewed! So here are some tips to make your speaking proposal stand...

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Let's Get DEVICE-ive: Email Marketing Strategies for Android vs iPhone Users

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Let’s begin with a thought experiment. Close your eyes for one second and imagine two people. Person one is an Android user. Person two is an iPhone user. What do you see? How are they the same? How are they different? What were they wearing? What cars do they drive? What...

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My Go-to Solution to Increase Revenue During the Holiday Rush

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Soon comes the busy holiday season lots of marketers and companies anticipate and fear at the same time. Want to stand out and make the most of it? Here's the solution that we've been using for the last few years: launch a special project that goes beyond the usual email format...

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The Email Design Debate: Picture Perfect or Text Included?

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I recently found myself scrolling through a lively LinkedIn thread where the debate over email design strategies was in full swing. On one side, emerging email marketers were singing the praises of image-only emails, while the more seasoned pros favored mixing images with text. This got me thinking: Is one approach...

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Beyond the First Click: Exploring the Long Tail of Newsletter Engagement

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Recently, I upgraded our newsletter software to introduce a new image-handling service, changing the domain for all image links in our newsletters. Why, you might ask? To give us more control of image rendering in the emerging world of AI. But that’s a topic for another day. But First, A Little...

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Why reactivation campaigns need more than a token gesture

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If you work for a consumer facing brand in sectors such as retail, marketplaces or travel where there is a relatively high propensity to buy multiple times, the chances are you are sat on a goldmine of under explored opportunities in relation to reactivating lapsed customers. I could quote lots of...

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The Connection Between Email Marketing and Organizational Processes

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Email has become integral to our lives, allowing us to communicate efficiently and effectively. It’s simple to use and all around us - at work, home, and on the move. Email communication and its smooth operation are crucial for the functioning of every business, regardless of its size or industry. Because...

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First Take on the 2024 Forrester Email Marketing Services Providers Wave™

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The 2024 Forrester Email Service Provider (ESP) Wave™ finally dropped today, August 5, and as usual, it’s filled with a mix of great insights, missing vendors, and “what were they thinking?” conclusions. As most of you know, for the last 9 years, my business has exclusively focused on helping enterprise brands...

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Setting a Minimum Email Frequency: Lessons from Publishing for eCommerce

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A recent conversation with some well-known folks in the space turned to the question about email frequency; but from the perspective of setting a floor – the minimum number of emails you should send folks on your list – rather than the maximum. Many eCommerce brands spend a lot of time...

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