Daniel Beulah says, “A few moments after her featured speaker session at MarketingSherpa Email Summit 2015, Shawna Dahlin, Senior Email Marketing Manager, Microsoft Store, sat down at the Media Center with MarketingSherpa Reporter Courtney Eckerle to discuss why it’s so important for marketers to recognize problems and implement changes to their email campaigns as soon as they can. Why shouldn’t marketers wait until everything is set up perfectly to implement program changes? “It’s never too soon to start being relevant to your customer,” Shawna explained. A lot of lists are “leaky... [...]

Katie Oakes says, “Two channels that seem to go hand-in-hand are email and social. Do you see clients integrate these channels successfully? How are marketers you work with excelling in email + social integration? AL: Email and social can definitely work well together, and the key is interconnectivity – making sure that messages are not only well-aligned, but truly complimentary. Social can take the interaction further by allowing users to add their own content and reviews, participate in contests and sweepstakes and really move the message to a dialogue. Additionally, top brands are incorporating... [...]

Olivia Dello Buono says, “As a writer, I can’t believe I’m saying this: Visuals are the foundation of your business. Consistent, empowering branding helps to draw in prospects and keep customers coming back for more. It’s your first opportunity to make an impression. It’s your brand identity. When Bad Design Happens to Good People But how often do we stumble upon a website or blog that suffers from a poor visual aesthetic? …What if it’s our own blog? An unattractive design can be overwhelming, pulling attention from the content and, ultimately, your value proposition. You could... [...]

Ayaz Nanji says, “Two-thirds (67%) of all US email opens occurred on a mobile device in 1Q15, according to a recent report from Movable Ink. The report was based on data from 1.2 billion email opens that occurred between January and March 2015 in the United States. The emails were sent by Movable Ink’s customer base, which includes more than 250 enterprise B2C marketers from the retail, travel, financial, media, and telecommunications industries. Some 50% of the email opens tracked occurred on a smartphone, and 17% occurred on a tablet, the analysis found; the remaining 33% of opens occurred... [...]

David Kirkpatrick says, “A recent MarketingSherpa B2B Newsletter case study, “Personalization Marketing: In-trial messages increased online registrations by 15% for a B2B SaaS,” covered Brainshark, a cloud-based B2B service for training, sales conversions and marketing. The case study examined how Brainshark pushed personalized messaging on users of a freemium product that offered a scaled down version of one of its main enterprise products. These messages took the form of informational and educational tips about using the freemium products and promotions for other free Brainshark products,... [...]

Max Altschuler says, “If you’re going to cold email your prospects, you might as well do it right. Instead of just sticking with the same old templates whether they work or not, take some time to A/B test your messages to get the most meetings booked as possible. Before creating and testing your sales email campaign, it’s important to understand the mechanics. You’ll want to keep an eye on a few things: Opened or Viewed Rate. This reflects the strength of your subject line. Clickthrough Rate. This reflects the strength of your call to action. Response Rate. This reflects the strength... [...]

Monica Montesa says, “Card tricks. Stage slides. Some of the most brilliant minds in Content Marketing. Henry Rollins. Copyblogger hosted an awesome conference in Denver, Colorado last week, and I’m stillprocessing the exciting two-day experience (and also slowly recovering from the shaky flight home). It would be an understatement to say that everyone at Authority Rainmaker left with an overwhelming amount of takeaways, and I won’t try to attempt to cover it all. But I will talk a little about one of the overarching themes: Creating content with integrity”. Creating Content with... [...]

Olivia Dello Buono says, “Been neglecting your RSS feed? We’ve got you covered. Here’s our roundup of all the latest industry news, announcements (and the occasional non-sequitur find) to keep you in the know. Most of Google’s Traffic Now Comes From Mobile People are relying on their smartphones more than ever to deliver timely information and search queries. Google announced the shift to mobile search at a digital conference earlier this month. So what does this milestone mean for digital marketers? Well, for starters, expect to see a shift in the quality of mobile ads. The company... [...]

Daniel Burstein says, “What assumptions do you make about your customers? Your competitors? Your industry in general? More importantly, what do those assumptions cost you? At MarketingSherpa, we write case studies to help you execute your marketing strategy. We also talk to writers, researchers and, well, renegades to help you challenge those assumptions and create an effective strategy to begin with. I’m talking about people like Stephen J. Dubner. Not only has Dubner learned about economic theory and customer behavior as co-author of Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden... [...]

Cecille says, “This Niche of the Week was supposed to be on email client affiliate programs, but I changed my mind at the last minute. Yes, you can promote email client affiliate programs, but I can’t get beyond the nagging question: Who still buys and downloads them? While you do have several options, the number is pint-sized compared with the volume of people and businesses looking for email marketing software. Email marketing is a quick, efficient way to reach your customer base. It’s less expensive than sending traditional mail, and allows merchants and marketers to reach a large... [...]