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Email is one of the most prolific and effective forms of marketing. However, a successful email program is more than just compelling copy and beautiful creative. It also requires a high-quality list of engaged subscribers. Keeping a clean list — one that’s free of invalid email addresses, spam traps and purchased addresses — not only…
No one likes when their hard work is ignored, especially after you’ve spent significant time and effort on your email campaigns. So why would you risk having subscribers send your messages straight to trash without even reading them? Unfortunately, most email service providers aren’t telling you when this happens, but if your readers are ignoring…
Email marketers are deploying sophisticated tactics to grab the attention of these consumers, and while it’s important to test new strategies to maximize the impact of campaigns, it’s also important to pay attention to one of the foundations that help campaigns reach the inbox: sender reputation.
For email marketers in the retail industry, developing a strong relationship with your subscribers is critical to your company’s bottom line. Therefore, many marketers are making data-driven decisions to fuel their campaigns. One metric that can help you more accurately analyze your email program is read rate — i.e., the percentage of subscribers who have…
Do your email subscribers want to come to your party? Hosting an event is a great way to build relationships while treating your friends and family to a good time. Everyone loves a great party, especially one that’s memorable, leaving guests in anticipation of the next invitation. This is the same way subscribers should feel…
Just like your personal relationships, your customer relationships need a little TLC to maintain. The easiest way to ruin a relationship is to not devote any time or effort to keeping your subscribers happy and satisfied with your email program. Here are three things to watch out for as you look to maintain the relationships…
With the flurry resolutions that accompany the New Year, enhancing your email strategy in 2016 might be one of them. Planning ahead starts with looking back, and a look at some of the trends we saw in 2015 shows that, generally, things are getting tougher for marketers. From decreasing deliverability to increasing mailbox clutter, creating…
During the 2014 peak holiday season, consumers received roughly 50 percent more promotional email than they saw earlier in the year. I expect a similar increase this month, making it even harder for email marketers to stand out in the inbox. Well-crafted subject lines can help to break through the clutter and grab readers’ attention.…
The deliverability landscape is changing, and it’s only getting harder to reach your subscribers’ inboxes. For years, marketers have optimized their strategies to create impactful campaigns that reach a large audience. Historically, their hard work developing sophisticated programs has resulted in an upward trend of inbox placement rates worldwide. However, for the first time in…
If you've noticed a drop in your inbox placement rate (IPR) lately, you’re not the only one. According to a recent Return Path study, in the past year the global IPR has dropped 5 percent, with only 79 percent of commercial messages making it to the inbox. Senders in the United States are having an…
If the inbox is a battlefield, your email subject line is at the front, openly fighting with your competitors’ messages to achieve the glorious victory of getting read. Studies suggest that 35 percent of subscribers read messages based on subject lines alone, and they take just a fraction of a second to decide each message’s…
Complaints are powerful indicators of subscriber sentiment. Mailbox providers pay close attention to them as they assess whether their account holders generally want mail from a sender. Marketers can use them, too, to optimize email program performance and prevent deliverability problems — but only if they listen. Of course, complaints don’t say much on their…
Some brands simply hang onto email subscribers better than others. They develop stronger relationships, more organic list growth, spend less on acquisition, and their customers’ lifetime values are higher — often dramatically so — than their competitors’. Among the differences between these leaders and the brands they outperform is systematic early intervention to anticipate and…
If this time of year marks your off-season, then segmenting, testing and sharpening your email program now will give you plenty of time to try new approaches, take risks and learn what will resonate with subscribers during your busy time. If you're in your peak season, follow the same steps to use whatever down-cycle time you have to optimize your email marketing program and revenue for 2016.
Email marketing is a very competitive field. Not only is your brand vying against direct competitors as well as other retailers for attention, you must also prove to mailbox providers that your content is desired by subscribers and should be placed in the inbox. To find out which brands are excelling in both inbox placement and subscriber engagement, Return Path compared the email programs of the top department stores and identified which brands stand out above the rest.
