I’ve been listening to brand side email marketers a lot over the last 20 years. They’re frustrated. They are resource and time poor. And on top of that, for many, email is one of the last channels to be given much attention. Leadership aren’t much interested, sales just wants marketing to...

As an email marketer for over 18 years across vendor, client and agency side I’m always struck by how much of our time is spent on tactical initiatives and having the feeling of being a factory producing the same campaigns week after week. It seems to me that most email marketers...

I think it's about time we have a serious conversation. Yes, you reading this. We need to address something before we go any further. I'm going to say something that might be a little controversial. I'm going to give you my secret to achieving digital marketing greatness. Ready? Stop paying so...

Twitter is a funny place. I was cruising around it about a month ago when I came across a series of tweets by someone in our industry whom I'm declining to name. The tweeter was one of several responding to another tweet about why he limits responses to "Can I pick...

We’ve now passed the one-year anniversary of the world changing with the COVID-19 pandemic; how is the email industry doing one year in?  Perhaps unsurprisingly, email remained a steady channel of communication throughout the past year. Email sits in an enviable position within marketing. It has the highest ROI of any...

Marketing Cloud 2.0 has arrived. The second generation of the eponymous marketing cloud ushers in tighter integrations between customer data collection, cross-device identity resolution, audience and segment creation, marketing workflow and digital asset management, and orchestration of campaigns, data, creatives, messages and promotions across many channels. This might not sound like...

Editor's Note: Nick will be leading a discussion on this article at a special, open-to-all OI Live Zoom Call on Thursday, March 25, 2021 from 12:00 noon to 1:00 PM ET. Register here.   Great marketing, that blend of art and science, is as much about knowing your customers emotional needs and...

Whenever I ask people for examples of emails they love, most are quick to show messages from brands with gorgeous images, great design, amazing personalisation or cutting-edge technology. Hardly anyone says, "I love the copywriting in [Brand X's] emails!" Unless, of course, I'm talking to a copywriter. This is a shame...

Image source: “Notebook work with statistics on sofa business” from Unsplash https://unsplash.com/photos/mcSDtbWXUZU/download?force=true In a previous post, I introduced the three types of analytics and shared that the first step of starting an analytics project is to ask yourself: What is the objective, intention, or question that you want answered? This post...

For the past few years, OPTIZMO has been publishing infographics based on email opt-outs processed on our platform (100s of millions every year). While there are many insightful reports, white papers, and infographics released every year by various companies in the email marketing industry, the vast majority focus on email activity...

So…. Data! Do you love it or hate it?! For me, data is the absolute power source of all you want to implement in your email marketing (and multi-channel marketing) strategies. Without data you can’t identify who you’re talking to, in order to better target your copy and offers; you can’t...

2021 Benchmark Report: Diversity in the Email IndustryPublished by Only InfluencersDownload the Free ReportComing Soon! On-Demand Webinar with Highlights! In late 2020 Only Influencers, the original community of email industry professionals, launched a survey asking members of the email industry to share information relating to the ethnic and gender diversity of...

Email marketing is one of the most trusted and most used communication channels between brands and their customers. On the business side, 59 percent of B2B marketers say email is their most effective channel in terms of revenue generation, and 77 percent of consumers choose email over other online channels. So...

“Quiet people have the loudest minds” as Stephen Hawkings says. “It almost seems as if my brain is trying to compensate for the lack of expression.” While this has a very personal context to me, it does compel thoughts of this digital channel and its evolution in the 25 years I’ve...

Internet advertising started with email. In 1978, a Digital Equipment Corp employee sent an Arpanet email promoting DEC computers. It was successful but didn’t open an advertising flood. This may have been because the National Science Foundation’s officially-unofficial position into the early 1990’s was that commercial activity on the Internet was...

In late December of 2020 I created a short survey to gather data on the impact of COVID-19 on ESP RFP plans for email marketers in 2020. I also included some questions pertaining to what platform features and functions email marketers in 2020/2021 are most interested in exploring in their RFPs....

In my last contribution to the OI Blog I wrote about Alchemy Worx’ Audience Management methodology. Which requires a move away from just pulling segments, which is a reactive process, to a more proactive approach which takes behavior from all channels into account. In it I showed how subscriber engagement does...

As a marketer, I’m always looking for opportunities to get better results for our clients. In case you missed the hottest new shiny object, let me introduce you to Clubhouse. Clubhouse is a live audio-only social media platform that acts much like a live event with speakers on stage, and an...

Can you trace that point, that moment when your email marketing career started? The foundation of my email marketing career actually started with the launching of a paid subscription (printed paper) newsletter in 1988 while I was at the accounting firm Arthur Andersen. I dove in headfirst on taking courses and...

Communications Decency Act of 1996, §230(c)Protection for "Good Samaritan" blocking and screening of offensive material (1) No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider. FADE IN:  EXTERNAL WESTERN STREET - DUSK Townsfolk peer through...