2021 State of the ESP RFP Survey Results and Conclusions

AdobeStock_259945801-200

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....

Continue reading
  4007 Hits

How Subject Line Tests Can Drive Long-Term Engagement & Loyalty

audience-management-200

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...

Continue reading
  3335 Hits

Will Clubhouse (the newest social media app) Make You A Better Email Marketer?

Morneau-_20210201-170437_1

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...

Continue reading
  2974 Hits

17 Memories and Observations from 20 Years in Email Marketing

Rear-view-mirror-200

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...

Continue reading
  3160 Hits

Email Marketing and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996

AdobeStock_71551726-200

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...

Continue reading
  2429 Hits

ICYMI: Top OI Blog Posts from 2020

AdobeStock_85976721-200

2020 was a difficult year In many ways... but it was a banner year for the Only Influencers Blog!  Most of these are still relevant and will be through 2021, so if you're looking for some good industry reads, this is the spot!  Here are our top 10 most popular posts...

Continue reading
  3219 Hits

Don’t Elf Yourself, Identify Emails on the Naughty List: Why You Should Give a  $#@& about identifying Email Bots

jenna-1-200

Have you ever seen a sudden spike in your email newsletter sign-ups and thought, "Yes, we finally see success with our email list growth!" Congrats, and you also generated a high click-through rate, or did you? You're not off the naughty list just yet. While list growth is something to celebrate,...

Continue reading
  3751 Hits

So... what has 2020 taught us about customer loyalty?

AdobeStock_75022030-200

The reasons any of us shop in specific ways and stick to particular brands may be down to habit or, indeed, our senses of loyalty. Not to mention a need for a quality-assured product that we trust. But scarcity is a peculiar thing. It makes human beings act in strange ways....

Continue reading
  2645 Hits

Temp Email and The Fake Email Generator

Poof-200

Temporary email, fake emails, and disposable email addresses are nothing new and they are not going away any time soon. Caution is warranted: The results are costly to you as an email marketer. If subscribers have used a random email generator to create a temporary email address, they are most likely...

Continue reading
  101113 Hits

Email Opt-Out Benchmarks

AdobeStock_186728822-200

Earlier this year, I wrote a post for Only Influencers on Turning a Negative into a Positive which highlighted the value of analyzing the negative marketing signals generated by every email campaign (opt-outs, spam complaints, non-responders, etc.). I thought I would build on that topic just a bit before 2020 comes...

Continue reading
  2776 Hits

How 2020's pains can lead to 2021 gains

AdobeStock_295989753-smaller

It's easy to focus on the negatives that 2020 has brought us, like the economic, political, and social disruption from the COVID-19 pandemic and all the uncertainty that has created in our marketing programs. But I've observed a major positive development this year as well: Marketers have paused doing business as...

Continue reading
  3331 Hits

The Trump Campaign's Unorthodox Email Tactics -- Do They Work?

2020-election-200

The 2020 Trump reelection campaign has been anything but traditional and this has extended to their email practices as well. Political campaign email in the US is notorious for breaking general email best practices. Political email is explicitly exempted from compliance with CAN-SPAM, and so it is often a bit of...

Continue reading
  5602 Hits

Develop a good ‘Creative Delivery Process’. Your key to meeting the brief with reduced stress

AdobeStock_266261475-200

Summary Using a defined creative delivery process with clear accountability across decisions and task, will ensure you produce the best campaigns with the minimum waste of time and effort. Have you ever found yourself having any of these conversations with colleagues or clients: “We need to do something, but we’re not...

Continue reading
  3707 Hits

Email Marketers: Are You Prepared for “Shipageddon" This Holiday Season?

AdobeStock_123961561-200

No surprise, the 2020 holiday ecommerce season is shaping up to be the biggest ever. Beyond the normal increase in online holiday shopping, COVID-19 will shift many former brick-and-mortar purchases to online. However ecommerce companies are nervous this year about the ability of the shipping carriers to keep up with demand...

Continue reading
  3634 Hits

Find the right predictive solutions for your email marketing!

carlos-muza-hpjSkU2UYSU-unsplash-200

In my last blog post, I provided a quick and easy roadmap to analytics for email marketers. In this post, I’ll continue the discussion on analytics by taking a deeper look at predictive analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning solutions in email marketing. [Moving forward, I’ll refer to the group...

Continue reading
  2402 Hits

Know where you're coming from to know where you want to go

Metal-Wheel-Concept-200

So often I speak to companies that are working away in earnest at their email strategy, with the aim of meeting targets set by line managers and directors higher up in the company, without truly understanding why they are doing it. Even worse, they’re tasked with ‘improving open and click rates’ generally...

Continue reading
  2641 Hits

Highlights of the OI 'Email Industry Career Journeys and Resources' Special Report

OI-Career-Journeys-2020-Cover-Image

Earlier this year many of you took our Career Journeys in the Email Industry survey -- thank you! And thanks to our sponsors, Origin Email Agency and Red Pill Email, as well as our committee chairman, Ryan Phelan, and members, Kate Barrett and Anthony Chiulli.  We are excited to be publishing...

Continue reading
  2490 Hits

You Might Need to Hire a MarTech Agency If...

digital-transformation-200-

Digital Transformation is back. You would be right to wonder, “Where did it go?” I've worked in the email marketing industry for a little more than twenty years. Before that, I earned a master’s degree in Technology Management at Mercer University in Atlanta. That was in the late 90s and, I...

Continue reading
  2218 Hits

Time to give your newsletter some love? A case study to help inspire.

AdobeStock_77605540-200

Summary What’s the purpose of your newsletter? Often one of the largest and most frequent sends from a brand, but often a compilation of message and objective, as it tries to do all things for all stakeholders. When trying to speak to all of your audience at the same time, what...

Continue reading
  2474 Hits

Forget Segmentation - Audience Management is the New Normal

pareto-200

80/20 rule - Engaging with the engaged The Pareto Principle or 80/20 rule states that in very many situations 80% of your results will come from 20% of your effort. This principle is very widely accepted and holds true in many cases, for example in IT, 80% of system crashes are...

Continue reading
  5308 Hits