A newsletter publisher is in the business of content, and there's no better place to keep up with digital content news, trends and strategies than this website. You'll find sections devoted to almost every topic under the rainbow, from content management and delivery to online community, pricing and syndication. The eContent 100 highlights 100 best-of-breed publishers with successful content models. To keep up with the site's prolific content, subscribe to the no-cost EContent Xtra email newsletter. Tip: Do look for penetrating articles written by Steve Smith, whom this publisher considers a must-read.
Mail server technology company trimMail provides an excellent news site called "Email Battles"
that is devoted to the holy grail of email deliverability in all its forms. They also provide this gratis
series of network research tools that will help you figure out several key things. For example, the Mail
Server Profiler tool will map and profile all of the mail servers in your domain. You can do a DNS
blacklists check to find out who has blocked your email deliverability (this may happen despite your
best efforts). And you can check to see that your DNS records are configured correctly, which is the
first step in successful email delivery.
At the time of writing, the Email Experience Council (eec) was a new organization for email marketers, with a mission to promote the ROI value of email marketing from the rooftops, so to speak. It is led by executives from OgilvyOne and has participation from many of the leading providers of products and services in the email marketing food chain. We support the concept and this centralized resource for email marketing best practices, trends, technologies and the like. It took a while for this editor to fully figure this site out, but in the end it was worthwhile and worth a visit from you.
If you'd like to mingle and share tips and techniques with email marketers around the globe,
then (at the time of writing) the Email Marketers' Club was accepting applications. One of the
reasons this site caught our eye and merited this reviw is the fact that it is also
a storehouse for truly excellent compiled lists of email marketing essentials, such as performance
metrics, email service providers worldwide and email testing tools and services. The club
is an online social community created by Tamara Gielen, who is (at the time of writing) the
Email Marketing Manager for eBay UK and also the publisher of the BeRelevant email marketing
best practices blog.
This excellent blog is full of posts and links to all the current email marketing reports
that will help you improve your email marketing efforts. This editor considers this site a must-visit
at least once a week because its quality reportage delivers must-know information in one fell
swoop. Categories include case studies, copywriting, email formats and layouts, deliverability and
much more. At the time of writing, posts covered everything from how to justify your email
marketing campaign to your boss (and get a bigger budget) to an email open rate guide to wireless
email marketing how to's to an article on how to misinterpret your email marketing analytics.
We must thank publisher Mark Brownlow in Austria for this excellently curated, no-agenda resource
that he's put together.
Silverpop's CEO Bill Nussey shares the latest in email marketing strategy and news with you in this
blog. Categories range from mobile marketing to RSS technology
to overall industry landscape, which is especially interesting because his CEO position at a leading
email service provider allows him daily access to email marketing events, conversations and the like
that mere mortals are typically not exposed to.
At the time of writing, articles included information about
this fascinating news brief for B2B marketers: "A recent study by Datamonitor has found that email has
finally surpassed the telephone as the preferred communications vehicle of choice. The same study
also ranked instant messaging and the telephone as the most disruptive communication tools in the
workplace" -- leaving the In box wide open for B2B email marketers, their email marketing messages and other
relationship-bulding activities. Disclosure: Silverpop is an advertiser in good standing
with this website.
Email newsletter usability is often overlooked, yet is an essential component that can make or break the profit you realize on your publishing investment. The report you will find here offers 127 design guidelines for subscription interfaces, newsletter content and account maintenance based on user research conducted by usability guru Jacob Nielsen. The author contends that email newsletter subscribers have a much more emotional relationship with a publication than site visitors, and there are many things that you can do as a publisher to strengthen that bond. For example, the study found that newsletters lost 22% of potential subscribers due to usability difficulties in their subscription processes and designs -- and that's certainly no way to get started. The report costs $298(US) to purchase but there are many no-cost sections and tidbits here for the taking.
For an in-depth lowdown on email marketing, visit the EmailLabs Resource Center. There you will find a plethora of best practices, statistics and tools. Highlights include reports on click-to-open rates, best days to email and average number of emails sent per week by retailers, plus tons of planners, checklists and quick tips that you can put into action right away to improve all aspects of your marketing campaign. You should also check out our favorite tool, the From/Subject Line Previewer, which will show you what your email message's From and Subject Lines look like in various popular email clients and Web-based services. While there, do sign up for the informative monthly email newsletter, The Intevation Report.
This company provides email delivery diagnostics. In other words, their ongoing audits
of your outgoing email marketing messages are designed to improve your email deliverability.
They check things like your domain name/IP address reputation to see if your emails
are blocked by any major ISPs or blacklists. They'll do content assessments that will pinpoint any
problems in your messaging, such as badly formatted HTML. They monitor your email messages
all the way to the In boxes of major ISPs and mail service providers to see if any end up in
bulk or junk mail folders. They'll keep you updated on the latest authentication
techniques. If you would like your very own complimentary delivery report, at the time of
writing you could create a user account that included the email address from which you send
your email marketing message test emails, sit back and peruse the results delivered to your In box.
One of the great things about being in email marketing today is that there is so much useful information about how to do it right and, conversely, how to avoid doing it wrong. The vendors of email services themselves are an excellent resource, and that include the ExactTarget resource page. Here you'll find links to blogs by company executives, case studies, video tutorials, archived webinars and whitepapers on all aspects of email marketing. You can even sign up for a quick evaluation of your own program. This site is especially useful for retailers and owners of small to medium businesses, and the articles are written to appeal to a wide range of email skill levels.