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Email marketing has some of the best ROI in all of online marketing. To optimize your ROI, you need to stay on top of this proven marketing medium. Below are 14 reviews of the must-read blogs on email marketing. WDFM is sponsored by...
Coming Attractions - The next 3 issues of this newsletter are:
Did someone forward this email newsletter to you? If so, welcome. I invite you to subscribe yourself so you can get each issue as soon as it's released. Subscribe to this newsletter at http://wdfm.com . Attention Bloggers: You can link to the content below and know it will live permanently at http://www.wdfm.com/publish/email_marketing_blogs/index.htm Best Email Marketing Blogs: Contributing Editor Janet Roberts has been inside email marketing for longer than most. The way she stays current on this essential channel of Internet marketing is by checking in with the must-read blogs she reviews below. Take it away, JR... Marketing blogs are getting to be a dime a dozen these days. The best blogs dive down right into a single channel. Blogs focusing on email marketing specialize in this channel-diving, especially those run by some ISPs and vendors. Some vendor blogs in particular are among the most informative out there, because the companies are eager to show off their industry savvy and manage to avoid excessive self-promotion. One note about blog reading: Yes, you're busy and you don't think you have time to keep up. Here are two fast ways:
Retail Email Marketing BlogsRetailEmail If you're involved in any aspect of e-commerce with an active email channel, this blog is required reading. If it's happening in retail email, Chad White will report it here, including hits and misses in copy and promotions. Especially useful is the Subject Line Index, which you can use to see what your competition is up to and which subject lines are currently most popular. Just be sure you don't end up in Chad's Hall of Shame! FB MineThatData Email is a key channel for e-commerce marketers, but it is only one of several in an integrated marketing program that also includes print, broadcast, direct mail, SEO and social networks. How to integrate your email campaigns and make them work with rather than independent of (or even against) your other channels is multichannel marketing guru Kevin Hillstrom's mission. His blog outlines real-world strategies and looks at ways to sew all the channels together so they work in harmony. If you're a marketing or retail executive, you should be following what Kevin says in his meaty, data-driven posts. This veteran of retail powerhouses like Nordstrom, Lands' End and Eddie Bauer knows a thing or three about making channels work. Email Marketing Round-Up BlogsInbox Insiders It pays to go straight to the top. This blog aggregates posts daily from top executives at Return Path (deliverability experts), eROI (email agency), Silverpop (email service provider) and others. Look here for breaking news, especially company-sponsored surveys and technical news and precious little brand-flogging. The bloggers featured here are experts at translating complicated technical news into language the average person can understand, and making them understand why they need to know it in the first place. FB Email Marketing Experts The name says it all: When you absolutely, positively have no time to read even the elite of the best email marketing blogs, sign up for this blog-of-blogs, which brings some of the best minds out there who are blogging on email, marketing, technology and related issues into one network under the Feedburner roof. Here you get one collection of posts from nine top blogs, available to read at the site or through an email with that day's posts. It's as close as you'll get to a 360-degree view of the email world, with news, tips, advice and editorializing covering content, subscriber management, deliverability, ISP relations, anti-spam developments, formatting and legal issues. If you have time for only one blog, make it this one. WDFM is sponsored by...
Email Marketing Advice, Tips and Best Practices BlogsEmail Experience Council The EEC launched in 2006 as a trade group by and for people who actually do email marketing. It was so successful it got a can't-refuse offer to join the Direct Marketing Association and has since evolved into a major information source. You'll find a fair bit of fresh news here every day, plus tips, best practices and viewpoints (which are newsy rather than self-promoting). The posting traffic is relatively low, so you can keep up easily, and you don't have to be a member to get the posts. It's also useful for connecting and networking with your fellow email marketers, since you'll see contacts here who don't post in other places. FB The Messaging Times This blog (published by Infacta, an email software and service provider) is well regarded by its competitors. It looks at all aspects of email marketing, sometimes commenting on issues raised by bloggers and sometimes stirring the pot as well with its own perspectives. It deals more with tips, advice and best practices for newsletter publishers than with technically detailed discussions. So, if you need a blog that looks at the issues you as a marketer have to contend with daily, this is an excellent blog to watch. No Man is an iland Mark's blog is an excellent combination of his own tips and advice and abstracts of worthwhile articles he picks up from other online sources. He has plenty of street cred as a best-practices email guy and he has a good eye for articles that both advance the practice for more experienced users and answer basic newbie questions. You'll find references to blogs, newsletters and forum posts that otherwise slip off the radar. International Email Marketing BlogBeRelevant! Tamara Gielen is the one to consult when you want an international perspective on email marketing. (You should, because you never know which country your messages go whizzing off to every time you send.) Tamara's home in Belgium and her job - Director of Email and Digital Dialogue Strategies at OgilvyOne Worldwide – give her a bird's-eye view of trends, attitudes and news. Hers is the blog that many other marketing bloggers read first for her original news and perspectives. She is also your eyes and ears at the world's major email conferences, because she posts her notes to the blog soon after each event. WDFM is sponsored by...
Email Marketing ViewpointsEmail Marketing Strategy from Silverpop CEO Bill Nussey Ever wish you could sit in while your CEO thinks out loud about email marketing's challenges and rewards? That's what you get when you read Bill Nussey's blog posts.
The Silverpop CEO reports on legal and technical issues, muses about issues of the day and shares strategic advice. Every well-written post is worth the few minutes it
takes to read. Look for Bill's take on tech developments, strategy, legal issues and better use of your email software, whether you're a Silverpop client or not. Adventures in Email Marketing Anna Billstrom is right in there with you in the email trenches, and she writes candidly about what works, what doesn't and what should never have seen the light of day. She pulls no punches either, so if you like sharp, tight writing that doesn't read like a press release or a spec sheet, she's the blogger for you. She manages to marry the technical aspects of email to the marketing side, so that you can plan your campaigns on firmer footing. She also turns a gimlet eye on the commercial messages she receives and dissects them with detailed and intelligent analysis. Email Marketing Technology BlogsCampaign Monitor One of the best compliments you can give a vendor blog is another vendor admitting he reads it faithfully. That's the surreptitious honor afforded Campaign Monitor. This blog is written for users of the Campaign Monitor email software, but many issues – coding, deliverability, rendering across different email platforms, devices and readers – are universal. The company is in the forefront of the move to standardize many aspects of email design and deliverability, two topics you need to stay abreast of to improve your own performance. John R. Levine Blog John is one of those tech wizards who can take scary, complicated email issues and distill them for the non-techs in the audience. He's the one to follow for the first news about changes and developments on email delivery, unsolicited email and legal issues, among other topics. You won't get marketing insights here, but you will be able to understand and stay ahead of developments on the tech side that can help or hurt your own performance. His perspectives and advice sometimes run counter to the herd as well, given that he's farther out there on the edge than many email experts or consultants. But, that's a good thing! WDFM is sponsored by...
Email Deliverability BlogsAOL Postmaster Blog If you don't have a close, personal relationship with the postmaster (the head email person) at each ISP, company blogs like this one are the next best thing. AOL's is the newest kid on the block, and it's as close to the inner workings as you'll get. Your tech people probably are watching this one closely; if they aren't, they should be, and so should you so that you know what they're talking about. One testament to the many eyes following this blog: A post (at the time of this writing) about changes in the way AOL will handle invalid addresses set off earthquakes in the deliverability world. AOL, for all of its lost luster, is still the biggest gorilla in the zoo for consumer marketers, so this blog bears close monitoring. Word to the Wise Laura Atkins maintains a relatively low profile in the noisy world of email and marketing blogs, but she always manages to be at the front of the line with original reporting and commentary on email issues, especially for commercial senders coping with unsolicited email filters, deliverability and ISP issues. She's a consultant who works directly with large senders, so she knows what you're contending with and what you have to correct in both content and technology to send more email. She keeps a close eye on what the big ISPs are up to and often has the first word on changes or decisions that can hurt your deliverability. Attention Bloggers: You can link to the content above and know it will live permanently at http://www.wdfm.com/publish/email_marketing_blogs/index.htm
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4/28/08
Internet Direct Marketing Tip of the Week Mobile Marketing = Short Copy Subway's successful mobile coupon campaign using text messaging must limit itself to 160 characters. It proves you can hit a home run with very little space. As more people read more messages on their Smartphones, the marketer will have to confine his/herself to getting the message across in a fraction of characters. Current wisdom is email subject lines can be up to 35 characters or so. Imagine how much your current subject lines will have to shrink in order to be mostly seen on a cell phone screen. Your copy will really have to be very "direct" in the truest sense of the word. LC Subscribe to this newsletter at no charge here.About WDFM Advertising in WDFM Click for WDFM's latest media kit Housekeeping If you received this issue from a colleague and you want your own subscription, you can get that by visiting http://wdfm.com and filling out the subscription form. It takes less than a minute. I encourage you to pass this issue of WDFM along, provided you do not change the copy, you keep the opening and this closing material, and you notify me. Ok, you don't have to notify me, but if you do, I will thank you personally. :) Thanks for reading all the way down to the bottom of this newsletter. :) Cordially, Larry Chase: Publisher |
