MediaPost | Email Insider
Copyright 2010 MediaPost Communications
Grow your list, get more from your budget, and absorb the sage advice of email marketing?s most respected pundits.

Gmail Priority Inbox: What's The Big Deal?
Gmail's new Priority Inbox: Will this message classification and prioritization system become one of the biggest changes to affect commercial email and the inbox, or will it evolve into a footnote along with Google Buzz and Wave?
That's My Name: Don't Wear It Out
Personalization is poorly used in most marketing emails. The belief that "any personalization is good personalization," simply is not true. When personalization is overdone or done improperly, the email can come across as phony, contrived or downright creepy. For example, I recently received an email that used my name in the subject line: "Neil, Labor Day hotel sale going on now." Awkward. Best practices to ensure personalization works for your campaigns -- not against them -- include:
How to Win Email Friends and Influence People
Words can lift our spirits, darken our moods, catch us by surprise and inspire us to take action. Words have the power to build lifelong allegiances or irrevocably sever relationships. This is important stuff we're talking about here. And depending on how you speak to consumers in your emails, you can either win them over or wind up in the trash folder.
Letting The Customer Lead
As email marketers, we track and leverage data to inform elements of the programs we run: opens, click-throughs, conversions, opt-outs, heat maps, and so on and so on. But what about good old customer feedback? Not something you see in a report, but something you hear directly from the source? Not something upon which you base an assumption, but something that can be categorically accepted as fact because it came from the consumer's mouth?
Hotmail Using New Metrics to Consider Inbox Placement
For over a year now, email deliverability experts have been talking about the 'fact' that ISPs use engagement metrics (typically not defined by these so-called experts) to determine inbox placement. But calling it a fact is a bit misleading given that none of the large mailbox providers has talked publicly about if they use engagement metrics to determine where emails get delivered.
After the Click: Give Your Landing Pages Some Love
Sometimes, our discussions about optimizing email campaigns can make it seem like our subscribers' shopping process is all about the email. In reality, having an awesome, engaging email program only takes us so far.
Email Marketing Is All About Trust
I love email marketing. My professional bio includes the fact that I "eat, sleep, breathe and sometimes dream email marketing." There are times when my passion for email marketing drives my wife crazy. I study how she processes and engages with her inbox. I inquire about why she opened one email, yet deleted the next; why she clicked through or purchased something from one company, yet not the next.
Does the Subject Line Matter Anymore?
I got your attention, didn't I? So of course the subject line still matters. But I propose that if your email program needs a "killer" subject line on each and every message to succeed, you have larger issues to tackle.
B2B Emails, Meet Twitter
Most direct-to-consumer marketers haven't quite figured out what to do with Twitter yet. Is it just a customer service channel? Or is it a place to dump offers? Are customers even listening? Score one for business-to-business (B2B) marketers. The channel fits in well with the kind of news distribution and networking that businesses already do. It's a smart way for you to share articles and information, because it shows off just how knowledgeable you are about your industry. And of course, it's a great way to add content to your marketing emails.
The Top 5 Email Marketing Practices That Withstand The Test of Time
Ten years have passed since the dawn of the 21st century, when Internet users were bracing for the Y2K meltdown. Since then, our relationship with the Web has gone from a hobby to a way of life. Email marketing, too, has evolved from a nice-to-have add-on, to an essential way of doing business for millions of companies. Here's a look back at the top five best practices that have emerged over the past decade, ones that may very well endure into the next.