Email Design & Delivery

SUMMARY: If you want email subscribers to respond to a call-to-action, you need to understand what motivates them. The problem is, different groups within your database have different motivators.

See how the marketing team at the American Heart Association solved this problem with a take on segmentation called "mind type." By researching its database and uncovering the key interest areas of four unique groups, the AHA created an email nurturing campaign that spoke directly to subscriber motivations and increased donation rates 42.5%. read the complete case study

SUMMARY: HTML promotions may perform the heavy lifting in your marketing strategy, but occasionally altering your approach can generate additional response. We've heard many marketers cite the value of sending simple, personalized, text-only notes to their subscribers.

To learn more about this strategy, we spoke with a marketer who has seen personalized "From" lines generate a 50%-100% increase in open rate and a 10%-20% lift in CTR. We cover six tactics, such as how to choose a sender name, how to approach subject lines and body copy, and why it’s important to watch your unsubscribe rates. read the complete article

SUMMARY: "Yahoo!, with 21% of U.S. email, has a approximate limit of 47 characters per subject line." "Hotmail, which has 14% of the U.S. email market, uses word wrap to display subject lines on multiple lines, allowing approximately 45 characters per line." "In fact, in 14 of 22 (64%) recent A/B or A/B/C subject line tests, the longer subject line performed better, regardless of subject line content." view the complete research record

SUMMARY: Jeanne Jennings is halfway through MarketingSherpa’s nationwide Email Essentials Workshop Training tour and has checked in with a tale from the road -- and advice for maximizing the limited real estate offered by email client preview panes.

Read her new blog post about the importance of developing email creative that works for recipients who use preview panes and image blocking. Includes an example and design tips to pull readers into your messages.

Click to continue read the complete article

By Anne Holland

In my dream world, every single email inbox acts the same. No matter whether your recipients see your email newsletter or campaign in Hotmail, Yahoo!, Outlook or whatever … they would all see the same exact thing.

And, that standardized email box would allow huge creativity for marketers. You would be able to use Flash, animated gifs and background colors and add forms into your email, including prefilled order forms.

Unfortunately, no one has... read the complete blog post