After putting in countless hours creating the strategy, designing the graphics, writing the copy, programming, and segmenting your target audiences, you’ll definitely want to make sure the intended recipients receive your email. Unfortunately, we’ve all experienced less than 100% deliverability. Most are due to soft bounces, hard bounces, unsubscribes and spam filters, etc. Email bounces … Continue reading »
Email Subject Line with Name Boost Clicks
Interested in breaking through inbox clutter? Put the person’s name in the subject line. That tactic will boost clicks even when the content is “not particularly informative,” according to research conducted by a team of academics, as summarized by the Chicago Booth Review. The research was conducted by Stanford University’s Navdeep S. Sahni and S. Christian Wheeler … Continue reading »
Why Targeted Emails are Better Than Email Blasts
Email marketing is a tried-and-true digital channel that marketers across all industries are using to reach and engage their audience. For every dollar spent on email marketing, the average return on investment across industries is between $38 and $45. 95% of those who opt into email messages from brands find these messages somewhat or very useful. 68% of marketers believe email is … Continue reading »
Most Important Email Marketing Capabilities to Meet Marketing Goals
Email marketing should be the “launch point” to customer obsession, according to a report from Adobe and Forrester Consulting. Yet most marketers aren’t using email for this purpose, instead they’re relying on promotions and measuring performance through engagement metrics rather than customer satisfaction and innovation. In comparing those companies assessed to be “customer obsessed” with … Continue reading »
Top Email Marketing Challenges [Study]
Most marketers face some email marketing challenges, according to a study from Return Path and Demand Metric. The survey indicates that marketers who use email primarily to communicate with customers and prospects and to build brand awareness are struggling with the competition for attention in the inbox. This challenge is likely to continue: one analysis forecasts daily … Continue reading »
How to Easily Increase Content Marketing Performance
Longer Headlines are Better for Branded Content More characters and more words mean more clicks. When writing headlines for branded content, longer is better. Branded content technology provider Polar analyzed data provided by premium publishers, such as Oath and Gannett, to see how a variation in headlines affected key performance indicators (KPIs). It turned out, branded content … Continue reading »
Email is Still #1 [Survey]
Email continues to thrives a channel to reach prospects and customers, even as other messaging platforms continue to emerge. Nine in 10 marketers in North America say they use email to engage their audience, according to a September 2016 survey by Winterberry Group and the Data & Marketing Association (DMA), email is the most commonly … Continue reading »
Increasing Success with Mobile Email
US email marketers are having increasing success with mobile devices compared to the desktop. According to August research, mobile devices were driving more email clicks, orders and revenues in Q2 2016 than a year earlier. In August, Yesmail reported results from about 7 billion emails sent by its clients within various industries, though largely retail-focused, … Continue reading »
Email Continues to Deliver Strong ROI and Value [Survey]
Email audiences are growing, engaged and increasingly mobile. Despite rumors of its decline, email marketing remains a growing and highly effective channel for marketers. However, for continued success, marketers must consider how to optimize their email communications for mobile use, and ensure their message volume, frequency, and data-driven relevancy positively impact performance. A June 2016 … Continue reading »
Email Engagement Rates [Report]
North American email engagement fell again in Q4 on a year-over-year basis, reports Epsilon in its latest quarterly analysis of clients’ email activity. The click-through rate of 3.2% was down from 4% during the year-earlier period and from 4.4% in Q4 2013, maintaining this metric’s gradual descent. Meanwhile, the average open rate stood at 30.6% … Continue reading »
Email Usage Habits [Survey]
Email service provider Adestra and Flagship Research surveyed US internet users under 35 and over 55 about their usage habits, and found that overall, 61% of them checked email, social media, text messages and voicemail before breakfast—including 39% who did so before their morning coffee. One in five respondents waited to check their messages until … Continue reading »
Preferred Methods for Brand Communications [Survey]
More than 7 in 10 US consumers would prefer to receive email communications from businesses over direct mail, SMS, and push messages, and the preference for email extends across age groups and genders, per an Adestra study. Boomers are more than 3 times as likely as teens and Millennials to favor direct mail, a result … Continue reading »
The Value of Inactive Email Subscribers [Report]
Inactive email subscribers are still valuable customers, reports MailChimp in an analysis of 6.6 billion sends through its platform that included 60 million e-commerce purchases and 40 million email addresses from retailers using its list segmentation and automation e-commerce features. Inactive subscribers were found to outperform non-subscribers across key metrics such as order frequency, retention … Continue reading »
Email Marketers’ Top Initiatives – 2016
Email marketers are much more focused on increasing subscriber engagement in the year ahead than they are on growing their list, per results from a recent StrongView survey, likely reflecting continuing gradual decreases in click rates. Improving segmentation and targeting ranks as the second-most important initiative for the email marketers surveyed, presumably as that will … Continue reading »
Most Effective and Challenging Email Marketing Tactics [survey]
Increasing email list quality ranks as a more important goal of an email list strategy than increasing list size, according to an Ascend2 survey of 245 marketing influencers around the world (65% B2B). The majority (55%) of respondents report that their email list is growing in size, though fewer (46%) say their list quality is … Continue reading »
Top Email Marketing Initiatives for 2016
According to a recent StrongView study, email marketers are much more focused on increasing subscriber engagement in the year ahead than they are on growing their list, likely reflecting continuing gradual decreases in click rates. Improving segmentation and targeting ranks as the second-most important initiative for the email marketers surveyed, as that should boost subscriber … Continue reading »
Email Growth Trends [report]
Email volume grew by 15.5% year-over-year in Q1 2015 according to the Experian Marketing Services latest quarterly email benchmark report, marking the 10th consecutive quarter of volume growth and the 9th featuring a double-digit increase. This latest study highlights reactivation series (re-engaging with inactive subscribers), noting that while the first email outperformed the second in … Continue reading »
Email Subject Lines: Read Rates by Length [report]
Email subject lines is always of interest as marketers try to get through inbox clutter. A couple of recently-released studies provide some fresh data to review. (The following results will not apply to all readers, who are encouraged to test their subject lines.) A study from Return Path, based on an analysis of “9 million … Continue reading »
Most Effective Email List Growth Tactics [survey]
Roughly three-quarters of marketers, sales and business professionals around the world report that their email lists are growing, but for the vast majority of those (61% of respondents overall), that growth is slow. List growth is one of the top email marketing objectives for the year ahead, per the latest survey findings from Ascend2 and … Continue reading »
The Best Email Subject Lines and Emojis to Boost Open Rates [study]
Writing effective emails and subject lines can be challenging. Most companies send marketing messages several times per week so these messages need to be subtle and creative to ensure they don’t become repetitive or annoying. This requires intimate knowledge of the company’s tone of voice and the target audience, but we can try to broadly … Continue reading »
Keywords That Can Be Misconstrued as Spam [research]
Most words and phrases that trigger the spam alarm are obvious: income, urgent, Viagra; as well as congratulations, discount, make money. Those are among the many in categories such as retail, personal, and pharmaceutical thatmarketers should avoid, according to research by MailJet. But some spam-tripping words and phrases may be surprising. For example, FedEx, Paypal, … Continue reading »
Over 50% of Marketers to Increase Email Budget – 2015
Budget trends are going upward, says StrongView Director of Marketing Communications Jason Klein. The cross-channel solutions provider’s 2015 Marketing Trends Survey released this week reports that 54% of marketers expect to see bigger budgets in the coming year (versus 46% last year), and that one third of them are counting on increases of 10% or … Continue reading »
Top Email Challenges [study]
List growth and maintenance are among the top email marketing challenges for publishers. Today’s digital consumers have forced publishers to move some of their marketing efforts away from print and toward online and mobile. However, the September 2014 research report from FOLIO:, sponsored by Lyris, found that publishers were still struggling with email marketing—a more … Continue reading »
Email ROI and Industry Benchmarks
Email Campaigns Achieve 4,300% ROI According to the Direct Marketing Association’s 2013 Statistical Fact Book, email campaigns had a staggering 4,300% ROI and earned $42.08 for every dollar spent on them. Business owners ranked email marketing as the best channel for ROI in 2013, and attributed an average 23% of their total sales to it, … Continue reading »
The Industries With The Most Active Email Subscribers
Yesmail’s analysis of email database subscriber behavior during Q2 shows that just 1.3% of B2B email subscribers could be considered active (having opened or clicked within the past 90 days), the lowest proportion of the industries studied (as with last year). The B2B industry’s low activity rate appears to be the result of targeting smaller … Continue reading »
The Best Time To Send Email
Email open rates improved again this year, thanks to consumers’ ever-growing use of mobile devices to manage their inboxes. Yet key benchmarks such as click rate and transaction rate continue to decline. As it gets harder to cut through the inbox clutter, email marketers increasingly seek new ways to upgrade the relevancy of their communications, … Continue reading »
Health Care Companies Have the Highest Email Open Rates [study]
Health care and education companies see the highest average open rates among emailers, according to a new report from IBM’s Silverpop. The report found that on average health care companies see an average of 26.2 percent open rates for their emails and education companies see an average of 25.7 percent. The consumer services industry sees … Continue reading »
72% of Internet Users Check Email on a Mobile Device [study]
My.com has released a new email usage report, tracking how users engage with email. The data, from a survey of 1,000 American internet users, found that 72 percent of users check their email on mobile devices, including both phones and tablets. Of those respondents, 48 percent use Android as their main mobile platform, followed by … Continue reading »
6 Critical Email Marketing Metrics
Email remains one of the most effective and inexpensive marketing channels available. One of its main strengths is the variety of goals that can be achieved, including sales, customer service, client acquisition and retention. Campaign may have slightly different KPIs, but there are some that are universally applicable. Here is a summary of some of … Continue reading »
Email Newsletters – Top Source of Info For Global Executives [survey]
A majority of global executives rely on email newsletters for industry-specific news, details a recent survey from Quartz, with respondents as likely to be using email newsletters for information as they are industry and general news sites. Email newsletters also significantly outpace social media accounts as news sources, with social platforms generally used more for sharing than … Continue reading »
54% of Consumers Filter Email [report]
A new report highlights some of the latest email trends and insights. One takeaway: keep it short and sweet! According to a new survey, more than 1,000 email users found that the longer an email’s subject line and body length, the lower the click-through rate. The “Science of Email 2014” report, by HubSpot and Litmus, … Continue reading »
45 Words to Avoid in Your Email Marketing Subject Lines
There’s an art to writing a good email subject line and there are some things you’ll want to avoid. Consulting a number of experts and sources, in addition to some research, here is a list of words (plus the odd phrase or experimental bit of text) to avoid when composing the perfect marketing email. Your … Continue reading »
Email Marketers Spend 26 Percent of Their Time on Creative and Content [survey]
Marketing is becoming increasingly multichannel and relationship focused. Email is the glue that pulls together all of these different disciplines, tactics and partners, as well as being a direct channel to the customer. The Email Marketing Speed Imperative study, published by Econsultancy in partnership with dotMailer, looks at how the ease of use of a … Continue reading »
The Future of Email Marketing
Email consistently ranks the highest for ROI. Despite the death threats, companies are attributing 23% of their total sales to email, up from 18% in 2013. Even with the advent of newer digital channels, email has thrived in its role as the unassuming, reliable touch point for marketers to engage with customers. Here are several … Continue reading »
Which Marketers Are Using Marketing Automation [survey]
24% of marketers say they don’t use any tools to manage their email campaigns, according to a recently-released Marketo study. But that figure masks significant differences when sorting by company size, as small companies (0-50 employees) are almost twice as likely (43.5%) to eschew the use of email marketing tools. Among larger companies, by contrast, … Continue reading »
Email and SEO Tops for ROI [survey]
This year, email tops SEO by a slim margin in the eyes of the survey respondents. The two channels topped the rankings in the past two years also (see here and here). In this year’s survey, respondents attributed on average 23% of their sales to email, up from 18% last year. About the Data: Based … Continue reading »
Marketers Consider Email to be Core to Business Strategy [survey]
Converting online traffic into revenue and overall brand awareness emerged as the top marketing priorities in ExactTarget Marketing Cloud’s 2014 State of Marketing Strategy survey. Over 2500 responses from marketers’ gloabally offered their insight into current and future marketing strategies and priorities for their companies. The results revealed some new and under-used marketing strategies for 2014. … Continue reading »
Email Marketing – The Best Time and Day of The Week To Send Emails [report]
For the second consecutive year, a report from Experian Marketing Services covering Q4 email activity has found that emails sent during off-peak hours – when the volume of emails was lowest – enjoyed the best response rates. According to Experian’s report, “volume definitely plays its role in performance metrics by time of day.” There are … Continue reading »
New Email Strategy and Design Workshop: May 17-18
Email Strategy and Design, 2 Day Workshop – May 17-18 Art Center College of Design Instructor: Lori Berson Register: http://www.artcenter.edu/acn (Space is limited.) Capture more leads with your email marketing. As digital marketing continues to evolve, so must your email campaigns. Cutting through the clutter and delivering the engaging, relevant, and personalized communications required for … Continue reading »
Email: Mobile-Only Viewers Jump 64% [study]
Research by Yesmail Interactive found that this trend is shaping the future of email. Mobile email’s share of all opens grew 5% last quarter to claim 55% of the total. As a result, revenues generated via mobile grew 52%, compared with 18% for desktop. In addition, the number of mobile orders jumped 58% to account … Continue reading »
Email Marketing: All About Relevant, Compelling Content
Recent research has highlighted the importance of relevance in marketing messaging, and a benchmarking report from Ascend2 concerning email marketing comes to a similar conclusion. Respondents to the survey indicate that the creation of relevant and compelling content is by far the single most effective email tactic for achieving important objectives. And it’s also the most … Continue reading »
Personalized Emails Increase Sales [survey]
Recipients are willing to share details to get more emails. At least one element of Big Data’s potential is finally being realized in email marketing, which is one of the most effective means that brands and marketers have in reaching their audiences. Marketers can now take information gleaned from shopping habits and other preferences and … Continue reading »
Email Fun Facts [infographic]
Some might believe email is dead, well the facts in this infographic from Marketo will dispel those rumors. Did you know the 5 key attributes of engaging emails are: • Trustworthy • Conversational • Relevant • Coordinated across channels • Strategic Are your emails generating sales? Call 877.447.0134 now to learn how.
Mobile Email Opens Blow Away Those on The Desktop
Checking email is the top mobile activity among both smartphone and tablet users Consumers are focusing an ever-increasing amount of daily actions around mobile, and checking email is often cited as one of the most popular activities conducted on such devices. December 2013 data from Return Path highlighted this trend, showing that more than half … Continue reading »
The Email Campaigns Marketers Find Most Effective [study]
Email marketing is alive and well, according to ExactTarget’s 2014 State of Marketing report. 68% of respondents to the survey say that email marketing is core to their business; by comparison, 46% say the same about social. With 88% of respondents saying that email currently – or eventually will – produce ROI, email is set … Continue reading »
Top Email Marketing Initiatives in 2014
Email marketing is slated for budget increases, according to the recently-released StrongView study. The study reveals that respondents are paying more attention to increasing subscriber engagement (a leading 44% naming this one of their top-3 priorities) and improving segmentation and targeting (36%) than to growing their opt-in email list (31%). When it comes to email … Continue reading »
How to Boost Email Open Rates
Email subject lines that convey a sense of urgency, such as those that contain the words “urgent” and/or “important,” have open rates that are much higher than normal, according to a recent report by MailChimp.The analysis also found that email recipients are much more intrigued by subject lines that contain positive solicitations rather than negative … Continue reading »
Email: Volume Increases and Weekend Mailings See Better Results
Brands continue sending more and more emails, according to the latest quarterly email benchmark report from Experian Marketing Services, which details a 12.7% year-over-year increase in brands’ email volume during Q3. That’s the third consecutive quarter of double-digit increases, with each quarter also registering an uptick in open rates. Meanwhile, further data from Experian indicates … Continue reading »
How Effective Is Video In Email? [study]
Using video as part of an email marketing campaign is a strategy that more marketers and brands are adopting. In the 2013 Online Video Marketing Survey and Business Video Trends Report, by ReelSEO, they look at who is using video for email blasts, how they are doing it and what the ROI is lin terms … Continue reading »
Personalized Subject Lines Key to Higher Email Open and Click Rates [study]
Does email personalization have an effect on open rates? Research released earlier this year MailerMailer suggested that personalized emails tend to see higher open and click rates, although the same study last year found the opposite result. Now, new data from MailChimp supports the case that personalization can drive higher email open rates. Measuring the … Continue reading »
Most Popular Tactics To Grow Email Lists [report]
Email marketers have a variety of goals for their campaigns, ranging from selling products and services (62%) to generating leads (52%), driving site traffic (51%) and driving brand awareness (51%), according to a new report from ExactTarget. With respondents saying that the quality of their subscribers is as important as overall ROI when gauging their … Continue reading »
More Marketers Are Using Online Video In Email Campaigns
Marketers are using video to support their marketing efforts in a number of areas, per the Web Video Marketing Council, ReelSEO and Flimp Media in a new study, with the vast majority reporting positive effects. While survey respondents most commonly report using online video as part of their website marketing content (83.9%) and for YouTube … Continue reading »
Marketing Emails Get The Most Clicks On Fridays. Tips For Marketers [Study]
Friday’s worldwide marketing email click rate is 4.9% Email inboxes worldwide receive the largest influx of email marketing material on Tuesdays, according to an October 2013 study by GetResponse. The email software company found that 17.9% of a week’s worldwide marketing emails were sent on Tuesday, followed by 17.3% on Thursday and 16.6% on Monday. … Continue reading »
3 Key Elements of Effective Email Marketing
Effective email marketing comes down to three key elements: What should you send? What content or promotion will best serve your audience and get them to act? Who should you sent it to? An organically grown opt-in list? A purchased list? A partner’s list? What segment of that list? When should you send it? The … Continue reading »
How Email Marketing Has Changed
Since 2008, marketers have adopted a more simplified email sign-up process for new subscribers and now ask for significantly less personal information, according to a recent study by Return Path. The report, which was based on an analysis of 61 email marketing programs in 2008 and 76 programs in 2013, found that today 33% of … Continue reading »
Half of Cell Phone Owners Now Email, Download Apps [study]
9 in 10 American adults own a cell phone as of May, and these adults are using their phones for a variety of activities other than voice calls, according to new data from the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. Sending and receiving text messages (81% of cell phone owners) continues to be … Continue reading »
Why Marketers Need to Refine Their Email Strategies
With over 50% of emails being viewed on mobile devices, marketers should be optimizing their communications for that format. In addition, too many marketers may have their email programs on auto pilot and are missing opportunities to engage more subscribers with their messages. YesMail’s latest study contains great information on how to address these challenges. … Continue reading »
Which Email Tactics Work Best For Brands [report]
Email practices – from signup to unsubscribe – have significantly changed over the past 5 years, details Return Path in a recent study. Brands are asking for less information at sign-up, are more commonly starting their relationships with a welcome email (but less frequently with an offer), and are making the unsubscribe process easier. But … Continue reading »
4 Email PreHeader Tips to Increase Engagement
Most of us are juggling many tasks with tight deadlines; we have to prioritize what we focus on when creating our email communications. Given that, we often focus on creating the perfect subject line, but the preheader text many times falls short of our attention. The preheader text is the snippet of copy on top … Continue reading »
Email Volume Growth Trends
The average email subscriber gets 416 commercial messages per month, says Return Path, and that number may just get higher. The latest quarterly email benchmark study [download page] from Experian Marketing Services indicates that email volume grew by 17.9% year-over-year in Q2. That follows an 11.6% increase in Q1, a relatively modest 5.4% bump in … Continue reading »
Off-Peak Email Messages Get The Most Opens
MailerMailer recently published the results of its annual analysis of email marketing metrics, with a section devoted to open and click rates by hour scheduled as well as by day of the week. This type of analysis always proves interesting to email marketers, although it always comes with the requisite disclaimer: results will differ by … Continue reading »
Mobile Email Opens Hit 50% – Is Your Email Creative Designed For Mobile?
The Experian Marketing Services Email Benchmark Study is another indicator of shifting email habits to mobile. The study shows that half of all unique opens happen on mobile devices (smartphones and tablets). Mobile-only opens are now ahead of all other individual platforms, and even outpace the combination of Desktop-only and Webmail-only. The Experian study breaks out … Continue reading »
Email Open and Click Rates, by Hour Scheduled
MailerMailer recently released its latest “Email Marketing Metrics Report,” a study rich in data and based on 1.4 billion email messages sent last year. One of the most interesting topics for email marketers covered in the report is how scheduling affects open and click rates. The study takes a look not only at open and … Continue reading »
How To Optimize Your GMail Campaigns
With over 400 million users worldwide, there’s a good chance many of your email subscribers are accessing your campaigns in Gmail. Optimizing your emails for specific email clients can help get your messages delivered and read. Emails that display the way you design them helps ensure your marketing efforts are much more effective. With the … Continue reading »
Gmail Tabs: Why They Help Email Marketers [report]
Curious about Gmail’s new Tabs feature and how it has impacted your marketing emails? With Tabs, Gmail users are actually reading more of their marketing email. Read this new ReturnPath Report to learn about the early impact and implications of the email experience with Tabs. Take your marketing to the next level. Outsource to BersonDeanStevens. … Continue reading »
How To Write The Perfect Email Subject Line [infographic]
Take your email marketing to the next level. Call Lori at 877.447.0134, or Lori@BersonDeanStevens.com
Mobile and Targeting Drive Up Email Opens
Mobile device adoption and the use of marketing automation to send more targeted emails are among the biggest impacts on email performance, according to a new eMarketer report, “Email Benchmarks: Key Metrics and Trends for 2013.” A February 2013 survey from enterprise email service provider BlueHornet showed that 71.8% of US email users ages 24 … Continue reading »
Email Subject Line Keywords – What’s Most Effective
Emails with the word “alert” in their subject lines have a 38.1% higher than average open rate and 61.8% higher click rate, according to a recent study by British marketing firm Adestra.The keywords “free delivery” (+50.7% higher open rate, +135.4% click rate) and “bulletin” (+15.8%, +12.7%) also performed very well in the email campaigns analyzed. … Continue reading »
Average Worker Spends 28% of Their Workday Using Email [McKinsey Report]
Your inbox is more important than your office. It’s where work really gets done. The average worker spends 28% of their time on email, according to a July McKinsey Global Institute report. That means more than two hours each workday are eaten up reading and writing messages. The quickest way to boost workday productivity is … Continue reading »
Where Your Emails Are Opened and Why It Matters
With the explosion of mobile devices in recent years, your email campaign could be opened at any time and in a much wider variety of locations and situations than a few years ago, when practically all emails were checked on a desktop computer. So what are some of the most popular locations that your emails … Continue reading »
Email Beats Social for Influence and Conversions [study]
While Facebook may allow online influencers to reach large numbers of people, email is more efficient, as a larger proportion of the people reached via email actually become customers, according to a new study of social referral marketing campaigns by SocialTwist, titled “The Connected Consumer: Brand Advocacy Trends from 100+ Social Campaigns.” SocialTwist looked at … Continue reading »
Which Tactics Work Best For Email Marketers? [study]
Email is a critical outreach channel for most B2C and B2B marketers. While creating content is always a challenge, other tactics that can help email marketers achieve strong results—including segmenting and optimizing the email message—are also some of the most difficult to pull off. Putting relevant content in front of the appropriate audience is key … Continue reading »
Email Subject Lines, Which Terms Work and Don’t Work [study]
Adestra has released its latest email subject line analysis report, looking at the keywords and phrases that fare best and worst across a number of sectors. With email volumes on the rise and clutter an issue for recipients, having a strong subject line is as important as ever, particularly as consumers rate the subject line … Continue reading »
New Gmail Inbox May Be Challenging for Some Marketers
Consumers may not click on the ‘promotions’ tab where marketing e-mails will land. Google has begun rolling out a redesigned Gmail inbox that organizes consumers’ e-mails into tabs, including a “promotions” tab that groups together marketers’ e-mails. That may force retailers to modify their e-mail marketing practices, especially merchants that offer sales for a limited … Continue reading »