Advanced Email Marketing Tools & Tactics Resource Center 

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.

EmailCenter is a UK-based email service provider that has kindly provided a tool that will check the spam score of any email marketing message. To use it, you fill out a form on their website which includes your email address. In James Bond-esque fashion, you are then sent an email with an email address to which you should send your formatted message. You will receive in turn a spam score plus a list of those items which are impacting your score, along with the actual points you are receiving for each infraction. Suggested fixes are also included. It is highly unlikely that the score of any message will be zero, but this tool will tell you how to keep your score as low as possible.

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.