Liz Willits says, “One of the great things about blogging is that it perfectly fits into so many other digital marketing strategies you might already have in place. And if you’re not yet using it to grow your email list and nurture an engaged community of readers, you could be missing out on some huge business opportunities.According to a Hubspot study, B2B marketers who blog generate 67 percent more leadsthan those who do not. Sixty-seven percent! So why does blogging help marketers get so many more leads? Well, there are three main reasons:1) Blogging tends to generate high-quality... [...]

Aaron Orendorff says, “It’s not “like” or follow. And it’s not even add to cart, buy now, or confirm purchase.The most profitable online click is subscribe.Why?Because, as McKinsey & Company’s much-cited study revealed, email is a staggering 40 times more effective at acquiring customers than Facebook and Twitter combined:91% of all U.S. consumers still use e-mail daily, and the rate at which e-mails prompt purchases is … at least three times that of social media … (and) the average order value is also 17% higher.But that was in 2014. Certainly the landscape has changed?”.How... [...]

Ellisa Hudson says, “You know that you’re a true email marketer if every single one of your emails includes a call-to-action. And I’m not talking about email marketing blasts here. What I have in mind are the individual, personal email messages you send on an everyday basis.Yes, your personal email signature can provide a serious marketing opportunity.You are most likely already using your own email signature to provide information about who you are and where you work. But you can take this practice to the next level by updating your signature to reflect the marketing campaigns... [...]

Scott Helmes says, “Social media has firmly cemented its place as a vital marketing tool and has evolved to be much more than just a platform for posting photos and sharing life updates. At the same time, email marketing has grown more important to marketers and has the highest return on investment of any channel.Both email marketing and social media have their strengths and benefits, and marketers need to focus on how to make the two work together rather than prioritizing one over the other.Email vs. social mediaSocial media platforms rely on email for certain functions, like welcome... [...]

Rebecca McAdams says, “Over the last year, we’ve seen a number of new acquisitions in the email marketing space.  Specifically:European cross-channel campaign management vendor Selligent and Silicon Valley email service provider Strongview were acquired and combined by Private Equity Firm HGGCMarlin Equity Partners acquired Teradata’s Digital Marketing Center — the part of Teradata which includes former eCircle, Ozone Online for agency services, and Argyle Social —  and mid-market ESP BlueHornet, which was previously part of Digital RiverVista Equity Partners picked... [...]

Ramon Ray says, “Have you ever received an email claiming to be from a specific brand or company, but it clearly wasn’t? Well, you’re not alone. And to prevent these type of “phishy” emails from reaching your inbox, email authentication standards have been put in place. That’s where Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance (DMARC) comes into play.I’ve asked Jacob Hansen, Deliverability Consultant, at SendGrid to help us better understand DMARC.What is DMARC?DMARC is an email protocol that uses SPF (Sender Policy Framework) and DKIM (DomainKeys Identified... [...]

Ayaz Nanji says, “More retail marketers sent holiday-themed emails in 2015 than in 2014, but those more recent campaigns generally had lower levels of engagement, according to recent research from Yesmail.The report was based on data for 30 major retailers collected between June 1 and December 31 in 2014 and 2015. The researchers searched for terms such as “Halloween,” “Thanksgiving,” “Black Friday,” “holiday,” and “Christmas” in campaigns to identify emails with specific themes.Some 13.4% more brands deployed holiday-themed messages... [...]

Tom Tate says, “Last week, our Director of Deliverability Mohammed Ahmed wrote a fantastic post on why email engagement is more important than ever for email deliverability.It’s not something marketers always evaluate before every send, but email engagement is an important factor to consider when optimizing your email deliverability and inbox placement. Check out this podcast episode to learn three tips to help boost your engagement!There’s no doubt that internet service providers (ISPs) and email providers like Gmail, and Hotmail are looking at subscriber behavior and engagement to... [...]

Dean Mannix says, “Do you struggle to write effective sales and marketing emails?That’s not good. Your writing can make or break a deal, so it’s important to make your sales emails as persuasive as possible.And you don’t have to be a professional copywriter to do it. Here are five easy tips you should implement to make your email campaigns more successful right now.1) Humanize the language.It’s 2016 and you’re dealing with real people. A salutation like “Dear <Name>” in an email creates a sense of formality and a personal distance in the communication.You... [...]

Kristen Graminga says, “Email marketing allows you to reach a highly targeted audience at a low cost. In fact, experts at Campaign Monitor, an email marketing company, estimate that an effective email marketing message has the potential to result in $38 in revenue, for just $1 of marketing investment.Here are some email marketing conversion tips all small businesses can use:1. Include descriptive tags with your images.Online publication MarketingCharts cites data revealing that the average person receives more than 400 commercial emails a month. Emails that include images can help... [...]