Kristen Dunleavy says, “Emails with special characters aren’t just a blast to ✎ write, they could potentially help your emails get more opens and clicks – if you’re using them correctly. We wanted to give you a few ☞ pointers on how to use them to your best advantage. Not All Special Characters Are Created Equally ☹ Unicode characters are special characters and symbols that allow you to write in different languages. They also let you create symbols beyond your standard exclamation points and asterisks – think hearts, stars, diamonds – everything you can find in a box of Lucky... [...]

Lindsay Kolowich says, “At one point or another, we all need inspiration to do our jobs better. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a marketing veteran who has navigated through years of changing technology or a newbie fresh out of college — we all need examples of outstanding content. It helps us get through creative ruts, make the case to our boss for experimentation, and improve our own marketing. Most of the time, inspiration is easy to find because most marketing content is publicly available. You can scour the internet or go on your favorite social network to see what... [...]

Katie Lantukh says, “With inbound marketing, you can track a million things. Reporting, analysis of that reporting, and optimization recommendations for the next month or quarter can be all-consuming. It also means you could hand your client a 30-page report each month. If you did, you can be sure it would be quickly thrown in the waste bin. You need to know what to track, how to prove the ROI of your efforts, and how to refine your analytics report so the client remains convinced of your abilities but not overwhelmed with numbers and charts. Here’s a list of five of the main inbound... [...]

Karissa Bell says, “Google is previewing a new version of Google Contacts that aims to simplify the service — by combining users’ Gmail and Google+ connections in one place. The new Google Contacts, a service usually accessed on desktop browsers, will make it easier for people to find connections and keep contact information up to date, Google says. SEE ALSO: 5 Google Inbox features that will make email suck less To create this more streamlined experience, contact information will be synced across Google+ and Gmail. Google Contacts will automatically pull in information from your contacts’... [...]

Lisa Furgison says, “Service-based businesses like computer repair shops, staffing agencies, cleaning services, marketing companies, e-commerce businesses and a whole host of others use email marketing to promote their business. While many service-based businesses embrace the power of email marketing, it’s safe to say the way you utilize email is much different than the big box stores at the mall. To help service-based businesses use email marketing to its fullest, we’ve created this guide that’s chock-full of information and tips to maximize every email you send. We’ll cover why your... [...]

Sujan Patel says, “Did you know that there’s a form of marketing that returns $44.25 for every $1 spent? I’d ask you to guess what it is, but if you’ve read the title of this article, it’s probably pretty clear that the answer is email marketing. Far from being “dead,” email marketing still has one of the highest engagement rates and returns on investment of any marketing strategy. The key, for any company, is standing out from the crowd. One way to determine whether your email marketing efforts are effective is to track your email open rates. There are plenty of mistakes companies... [...]

Dwight Sholes says, “Planning to start sending email to subscribers in countries outside the U.S.?  Here are twelve tips to make sure you are successful. Language:  Establish at the outset the language that you will be using to address your audience.  Will you be sending English-language emails to your international audience, or addressing subscribers in their local language?  This decision varies by country, region and audience.  For example, in some countries you must use the local language for all emails while in other markets local subscribers are accustomed to receiving email in... [...]

Aleksandr Peterson says, “As marketing automation gains popularity many companies are expanding their use of email campaigns. Spammers, unfortunately, are also expanding their use of spam. In 2013, spam comprised an estimated 84 percent of all email traffic. As a result, email providers and readers have raised the standards for what content makes it into the inbox and stays there. Even if you aren’t trying to send spam (which we’ll assume you aren’t), many of your targeted messages could be filtered out of inboxes before prospects get a first impression. In addition to choosing... [...]

The biggest marketing companies around use email: Staples, Kroger, Walmart, Sears and many others use email to sell their products. They know something about email that you may think is no longer true. They know email still works. That’s why they spend thousands of dollars every month sending attractive emails to their customers and their opt-in leads. To prove this point, Joe Lavery cites a high-powered consultant’s report, “”A new study from McKinsey cites email’s dominance over Facebook and Twitter, saying email is nearly 40 times better than Facebook and Twitter at acquiring... [...]

Selena Blue says, “If you haven’t noticed, #SherpaEmail has taken over Twitter. Well, maybe not in a break-the-Internet scale of Kim Kardashian, but your marketing peers have been tweeting their hearts out with all the good information they’ve learned at MarketingSherpa Email Summit 2015. With Day 2 of Summit underway, we wanted to share some key nuggets your peers found valuable on Day 1. (I might have smuggled a few of my own in too.) Check out some key takeaways from each of yesterday’s insightful sessions. Humanizing Your Email Program: How to transcend the digital revolution by using... [...]