Email Marketing Best Practices

If you’ve mastered marketing automation 101, and even tackled our 9 steps to go beyond the marketing automation basics, then you’re ready for a few of our expert tips. At this point, you should be delivering highly relevant and dynamic email content, sending out drip emails to nurture prospects over time, and managing your social profiles using real-time and scheduled posts.

Sound about right? If so, then read on to find out how you can continue to improve your marketing automation efforts with these 8 steps, inspired by the Mastering the Art of Marketing Automation eBook:

1. Don’t get lazy. At...

Over the next several weeks, we will be sharing guest articles from experts in the realm of content marketing. This week, Steven Shattuck writes.

Steven is VP of Marketing at Bloomerang. He is a featured contributor to Social Media Today, and has been published in Search Engine Journal, Business2Community and the Content Marketing Institute. Steven has spoken at national and local conferences, and is frequently interviewed by traditional media outlets in Indianapolis for his expertise in social media marketing.

There's no shortage of content marketing advice out there. Now that most marketers...

Marketing automation is the intersection of many useful features and functions. It's a proven fact that marketing automation software gives marketers full visibility into aspects of the sales cycle that were previously a mystery. But the sheer number of buttons and tools can seem daunting if they're not old-hat to you just yet.

As you begin to build an effective marketing automation program, you can begin to gain a holistic view of your marketing activities. From there, you can streamline traditionally manual processes (like customer segmentation, email marketing, and campaign management).

Start ...

Join us in San Francisco on May 9^th and Seattle on May 10^th for the launch of the Digital Mornings Breakfast Seminar Series. In this monthly six-part series we’ll gather together to discuss some of the latest research, updates and trends in cross-channel marketing over coffee and breakfast.

In the first session we’ll dig into an overview of the Cross-Channel Marketing Challenge, taking a look at how effective cross-channel campaigns can support the customer lifecycle: acquire, on-board, engage and retain. We will share best practices and case studies on cross-channel programs that incorporate...

Join Kristina Huffman, Design Practice Lead, as she discusses and answers seven common questions about responsive email design:

What is responsive email?
Responsive design is a set of techniques in web design and development used to adapt a website to be readable on any screen and/or platform on which it's displayed. These techniques are being repurposed for emails. A responsive layout uses a piece of CSS3 code called a media query to detect the pixel size of the screen on which that email is opened. Based on the screen size detected, multiple stylesheets may be triggered to alter the layout and...

October 2012 was an exciting time for ExactTarget’s partner ecosystem. Not only was the Orange Partner Network program launched at Connections, but also in front of the 4,000+ attendees, ExactTarget was excited to present the Power of ONE Reseller Partner of the Year award to our Platinum partner, C.TRAC.

C.TRAC has taken ExactTarget’s passion and unwavering commitment to client success and worked it into their own daily business practices by truly embodying ExactTarget's core values. Combined with their innovative strategy, design, integration, database management, reporting services, and...

Let’s face it: gaining and retaining customers can often feel like a delicate negotiation process. What is the right mix between what you’ll give in the way of offers and discounts to what your customers gain through their interactions with you?

However, retailers will have more than just price in their bargaining arsenals. In this post, we explore the benefits of using an abandoned cart program to recapture lost revenue.

#1 Way Retail Marketers are Leaving Money On the Table: Not Having an Abandoned Cart Strategy

Our Retail Touchpoints Exposed data found that only 22 percent of retailers on the...

The Marketing Sherpa Email Summit is heavily focused on providing attendees with takeaways to apply in your marketing as soon as you get back to the office--or even before.

The conference provided best practices and real-life examples for the lifecycle of your email campaigns, starting with list acquisition. Matt Byrd of WeddingWire used his presentation to highlight a topic that is extremely helpful, but also stressful for marketers: removing unengaged subscribers from your lists. This topic was recently highlighted by Al Iverson but I wanted to share Matt's experiences as he took on this...

I was doing some consulting recently for a company and they asked a great question, so I wanted to share it (and the solution, of course).

We were discussing sales enablement drip programs, and how to help sales keep up with more prospects over a long sales cycle. We discussed putting in place some very specific drip programs which would come from the sales reps. They loved the concept, but wondered what would happen if a prospect got an automated email and a "real" email from the sales rep in the same day?

This is a great question, and one that not enough marketers ask themselves. If you don't...

What is the easiest way to comply with ExactTarget's Anti-Spam Policy?

First things first... What is ExactTarget's Anti-Spam Policy? If you have a look at the policy, you'll find that we expect that our customers "will use our software only to send emails to customers and prospects that have directly consented (opted-in) to receive email."  In a nutshell, the answer is found in two simple words: "No surprises."

Clients often ask about the propriety of engaging in buying or renting lists, or engaging the services of an append house. All of these are against the Anti-Spam Policy.

To understand why,...

About 18 months ago, I blogged about some impending changes to cookie laws in the EU, and potential ramifications for marketers. As it turns out, those laws didn't cause the world to end, some Governmental sites weren't even compliant, and to this date I do not believe the legislation has been truly enforced on any individual or organisation.

That being said, the latest proposed updates to the EU Data Protection Regulations have potentially much more widespread impact for all marketing, and indeed any company which handles or processes customer data.

If the legislation were to be passed in its...

As a member of ExactTarget's Global Support leadership team, I see a lot of examples of how not to do things. Most of the time, my team can help you reverse-engineer the issue and align your work to industry and ExactTarget best practices. There are some mistakes, though, that even we can't help you come back from--and that can be disastrous to your marketing program.

Here are the top five that I've seen from my time at the support desk, and how you can avoid being a victim:

1. Location location location: Know your source of truth for subscriber information. Is it your internal CRM database? Is...

As a follow-up to the article I wrote for ClickZ the other day, I wanted to talk a bit more about the use of technology and the adoption of best practices in large B2B organizations.

My research for the ClickZ article looked at B2B companies on the Fortune 500* and their adoption of modern marketing tools. But when you look at the raw data, it becomes clear that there are three easy lessons for any B2B marketer.

Lesson 1: Technology is only the beginning

When adopting radical new technologies, the technology itself is often only part of the story. The other part is a shift in thinking or action....

Convenience, ease-of-use, and efficiency are no longer wants, but necessities in our fast-paced society. Auto bill pay, GPS, and other developments in technology continue to automate our lives. Marketers are working to stay at the forefront of their customers’ interactions across channels—including mobile.

Mobile SMS and push messaging are some of the easiest ways to cut through the clutter and get directly in front of customers. Yet, to have a robust mobile presence, it’s the magic behind the display that makes it possible.

Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) arm marketers with the...

STRATEGY OVERVIEW
Social and mobile go hand-in-hand—literally. According to our Mobile Dependence Day report, nearly 60% of smartphone owners in the United States use their phones to visit social networking sites daily—and, in some cases, “constantly throughout the day.”

Make sure you’re taking advantage of all that mobile activity on Facebook, Twitter, and other popular social media sites.

HOW TO PUT IT IN ACTION
This strategy really starts with social—so that’s where we’ll start, too:

1. First, gain a thorough understanding of best practices for marketing on Facebook and Twitter. For tips, check...

Are you monitoring and engaging customers on Facebook and Twitter? Do you include an email address in the contact section of your brochure site? Then why are you telling your email subscribers not to reply?  

I am always surprised at the number of messages--and not just transactional--that include "Do Not Reply" in the from name, reply address, or both.  You have worked too hard to grow your list and create relevant content to stifle the conversation now!

A primary benefit of the email channel is to create a one-on-one dialogue with your subscriber. If the first thing your readers see is an...

You may remember my recent post wherein I mentioned that a client had a rather unique problem with Gmail delivery; their ability to get ExactTarget-served mail to the inbox ultimately seemed to be negatively impacted by mail being sent by them OUTSIDE of ExactTarget. In response, a reader asked, "How does one ensure that 3rd party affiliates are not pulling you down? Would a redirect protect the parent domain name?"

I'm not entirely sure that you can work with third party affiliates and ensure that their activities referencing your brand and domain won't have any impact on your core mailing...

There's something new happening in the world of stand-up comedy, and it has nothing to do with the material that the "by-night" performers are delivering to audiences. Take Indianapolis-based comedy joint Crackers, for instance. On any given night, groups hungry for a laugh can grab a table, maybe an appetizer and a few beverages, and enjoy a lineup of amateur performers before the big-name headliner takes the stage for an hour-long set. But before the comedy starts, audience members are encouraged to subsribe to Crackers' "Mobile Text Club."

Essentially, venues like Crackers invite their loyal...