When looking to China, and in excess of a half billion consumer mailboxes , it is no surprise email marketers will identify substantial opportunity, this should be balanced with the understanding the landscape is very different to anywhere else in the world.  It is certainly not a simple matter of transferring your experience gained in North America, Europe or even Asia-Pacific and applying that to the mainland Chinese market.

Marketing in China offers several opportunities. The overall market huge and wealth is on the rise – two factors that are especially attractive to international companies. That said, marketing in China can differ significantly from marketing in the U.S. as well as many other Western countries. Email marketing, in particular, offers specific challenges not common in the rest of the world.

Your landing page or capture / conversion page, is one of the greatest assets a marketer has. Those single pages that are crafted to capturing permission and get the contact (first step) or get the conversion (last step). Often general site pages don’t cut it. These are the micro-conversions that often don’t get the attention they deserve.

Site owners can build successful landing pages, there are plenty of resources and best practices to help you do it. Still, avoiding the pitfalls plaguing ineffective landing pages continues to be a struggle.

Oracle’s Cross-Channel Marketing solution, Oracle Responsys, empowers marketers to deliver more relevant, real-time interactions for consumers across email, mobile, display, social, and web experiences. Program Orchestration offers a centralized canvas to coordinate personalized interactions with a powerful, point-and-click interface that helps marketers adapt—not just respond—to customer behavior.

With an overwhelming number of devices to consider, taking the time to learn and adopt responsive design as early as possible will save you time, money, and resources in the future. Not to mention continuing to keep the customer happy and dedicated to your brand. (Courtesy of Shaw + Scott)

Download the 2015 Email Vendor Features and Functions Guide, brought to you by Red Pill Email.

I’ve been lucky in my career – I’ve been brought in three different times to turn around and/or grow an email program. Two were (and are) rousing successes. Let’s just call the other one... a valuable test.

MailChimp analyzed over 395 million emails during a 6-month period to examine how a user’s preferred device affects email engagement, investigate the impact of responsive design, and find out if testing your emails can increase click rates. Courtesy of Litmus.

"Here’s what’s on the 2015 “to-do” list of these top marketers, and should probably be on yours as well."

The practice of marketing has long searched for the ideal, one-to-one, marketer-customer communication channel – one that would allow two-way conversations and deliver masses of critical customer information back to the marketer. For marketers everywhere, this would be the marketing “Holy Grail.”

How to Maintain Consumer Confidence and Trust When Selecting a Mobile Program Provider.

Vendors that focus on the acquisition of email addresses have been shamed for too long. Admittedly, the email acquisition space is rife with vendors of ill repute, and plenty of people have lined their pockets with the money of marketers hoping for a quick way to grow their prospect databases. This does not mean, however, that ALL acquisition vendors or all email acquisition practices are bad!

Last year was a big “rethink” year for email, after clawing its way back into the limelight as the reigning champion of digital marketing. Mobile email penetration peaked in 2013 igniting marketers’ need to gain insight on how this growth was influencing their email programs. Inbox Marketer’s behavioural email data showed major shifts in device usage and consumption patterns, underscoring the need for new strategies in the design and development of mobile optimized email.

Last week I had the opportunity to speak at an Atlanta Interactive Marketing (AiMA) event on must-have marketing automation tools. Marketing is about getting the attention ofthe people who matter most to your business, and what makes it possible to reach these people is the data we have about them. No matter how you compile it, the data you have about customers is what drives your automation. What I wanted to share at this event was that, regardless of which automation platform you use and which processes you have in place, your automation efforts will never be as effective as they could be if you’re not automating the data that drives these processes. Marketing automation isn’t complete without data automation.

“You are all the same”, the words uttered by brands to ESPs, the words that ESPs don’t like to hear.

But is it true?

So here’s some advice for brands to answer this.

Dela Quist is the Founder of Alchemy Worx 1. How did you get started in Email Marketing? Before becoming involved in the digital world my background was in publishing and advertising. In other words, using content to provide marketers with an opportunity to showcase their products and services to our readers....

What’s the first thing you think of when you hear the letters “RFP”? Chances are it isn’t something good—unless, of course, you work at The Relevancy Group. We love RFPs and helping our clients manage the process and get great deals. But for the rest of the email world on both the buy side and the sell side these three letters come with a lot of baggage. Why is that?

I have a confession to make - I’m a tech nerd. I love how technology is constantly evolving, getting smaller, faster, bigger, smarter, easier, and everything in between. In fact, I’ve had my new Samsung Galaxy Note 4 for all of 48 hours and I am still flying a cloud of nerdtastic awesome!

It’s holiday email season! Right about now is when I start having a hard time managing my personal email – there are quite a few brands in my inbox and while I really do want email from the companies I enjoy, the volume is at times unmanageable and causes me frustration. I know my family and friends feel the same way. How can marketers make sure they are maintaining their brand reputation and inbox placement, while at the same time sending what’s needed to help companies reach their holiday goals? Here are some reminders on how to send smart email and maintain a good sending reputation that will carry you into the New Year.

Tim Watson is the Founder of Zettasphere. 1. How did you get started in email marketing? My first experience of email marketing was a little unorthodox. Little did I know it was the first step into many years of email. And it’s a secret I've never shared until now. Back in...