Email list growth & maintenance

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: Before you conduct your next email test, make sure you're not falling into a trap that can muddy your results or limit the gains you might otherwise achieve.

We spoke with an email testing expert from our sister company, MarketingExperiments, to uncover common mistakes marketers make when running email tests. Read why good analytics and segmentation are crucial forerunners to testing, and why a blockbuster discovery from one test actually can be a risky thing for a marketing team. read the complete article

SUMMARY: A case of the flu kept Pam O'Neal, VP Marketing, BreakingPoint Systems, from delivering her talk on lead generation through email and social media at last week’s Email Marketing Summit. So we caught up with her this week to learn how her team combined the two channels to create a powerful engine for inbound leads.

Read the eight essential tactics that have helped BreakingPoint triple its revenues in each of the last two years. Includes advice on:
o Coordinating a strategy with the sales team
o Establishing a social media presence
o Creating and distributing content
o Nurturing leads with drip email campaigns read the complete interview

SUMMARY: Jeanne Jennings checks in with another report from our Email Essentials Workshop Training tour. This time, she’s sharing her thoughts on an often overlooked, but nonetheless critical asset to your email programs -- the welcome message to new subscribers.

Read her new blog post about making your welcome messages more engaging for new subscribers, while supporting bottom-line goals such as generating clickthroughs and sales.

Includes a side-by-side comparison of a welcome message that’s missing the... read the complete article

By Anne Holland, Content Director

I’ve been surfing through Sherpa Case Studies and interviews from the 2001-02 era. It was, we thought at the time, the Big Downturn. It was dark, stormy, scary. Several marketers lost their jobs.

Now, of course, we’re in a new recession sooner than expected (aren’t these things supposed to occur only every 15-20 years?)

So, what worked last time that we can use to beat the odds this time around?

My... read the complete blog post