You may be fishing where the fish are, but are you using the right equipment?
Despite the iFrenzy currently dominating the media landscape, various thinkers and doers from across the web have recently chimed in on the importance of optimizing your approach to sending email newsletters.
Whether you’re worried about the hygiene of your list, the quality of your message, or find yourself wondering if anybody actually reads your stuff, you may have questions in need of answers.
So we’ve sifted through thousands of articles on email marketing and we’re proud to present the following 7 insights:
1. Three Questions Your Email Should Answer In 8 Seconds Or Less
Alex Madison and Lisa Harmon collaborate to tackle the issue of grabbing an email subscriber’s attention before their ADD kicks in (i.e. in the first 8 seconds), and reveal strategies to making sure you’re striking while the email iron is hot.
2. Email marketing deliverability: 25+ tips to reach the inbox
The Social Email Guy (aka @socialemail) shares his compendium of tips for safe email delivery. Some are basic (i.e. “Test, test, test”) and some might not be obvious (i.e. “Drop the noreply@”). See the rest of his tips here.
3. Stop Adding Me to Your Email Newsletter
Chris Brogan (aka @chrisbrogan) doesn’t want to receive your email newsletter. And who can blame him? He never signed up for it.
Click here to read Chris’ letter to misguided email marketers across the globe.
4. B2Bs: Your Email Policy Could Be Hurting You
Ruth P. Stevens turns conventional wisdom on its head and makes the case against opt-in email policies for B2B marketers.
Her concept? Send email to contacts until they tell you explicitly to stop. It’s what they want anyway. Read the rest of Ruth’s piece here.
5. Harvard Business Review Is DEAD Wrong About Opt-Out
DJ Waldow (Director of Community, Blue Sky Factory) fires back at Ruth Stevens’ piece (see story above), and spells out exactly why he thinks she’s got the wrong idea when it comes to sending B2B email newsletters. Click here for the powerful rebuttal.
6. A Failed Sales Push by Chris Brogan and How You Can Do Better
Justin McCullough (aka @Leader4hire) calls out Chris Brogan (aka @chrisbrogan, again) on what he calls a “failed” email marketing push.
McCullough outlines a recent campaign Brogan (and others) were a part of and shows where they dropped the ball.
(In fairness, McCullough is splitting hairs on an otherwise brilliant campaign, but hey, these blog posts don’t write themselves, and he gives deserved props along the way).
Decide for yourself, here.
7. How To Get People To Actually Read Your E-Newsletters
Oh yeah, people are supposed to be reading these email newsletters. Linsey Knerl (aka @Lknerl) gives 8 tips to better email newsletter engagement.
Bonus: A slideshow version of Linsey’s post.
[image: sashafatcat]
What have you read (or written) about sending email newsletters that we missed?
If you liked this, try:
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Andrew,
This is a mighty fine roundup of email marketing goodness. Thanks for including that blog post of mine. In all fairness, Chris Brogan, CS Penn, and Blue Sky Factory did an exceptional job executing the first 98% of the email marketing campaign I wrote about, it was just that last 2% that didn’t work as it should have. Otherwise, a perfect case study for email marketers to follow.
Good content. Thanks for including and thanks for sharing!
Best,
Justin McCullough
@Justin: Thanks for dropping by and leaving your comment. For the record, I walked away from your post with good insight on both email marketing in a general sense, but also timing and game-day delivery of specific campaigns.
I think your point happens to be a correct one, that one hiccup can lead to a customer abandoning despite everything else being done perfectly.
Thanks again for dropping by.
Thanks so much for including me in your roundup! People are usually very open to signing up for a newsletter (even with a double opt-in) if they know what’s in it for them — straight from the get go. Transparency rules
@Linsey: Thanks for dropping by. I agree with you. For me it always goes back to things I learned working in restaurants: Tell people what’s on the menu, see if there’s anything they might be interested in, give them a sample if they seem on the fence, and when they pick what they want DELIVER the goods. They’ll tell their friends, they’ll be a repeat visitor, or they’ll give you feedback as to how you can make it better. (This of course assumes you were nice the whole time). Anyway, maybe I’m just hungry.
Thanks again for stopping by. Keep up the great writing!
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