The subject line is reborn...
Did we mess up with our "shorter is better" approach to subject lines? Research sheds new light on the "right length" and this issue has the details.
If you wonder whether email certification might be a good way to bypass any delivery problems, you'll want to read the special report on the topic.
And if the subject line news doesn't shake your confidence, how about the possibility that too much personalization is bad for your clickthroughs? All the details below.
Hope the weather's better where you are,
Mark
Email Marketing Reports | Forward this to colleagues
P.S. I'm on vacation all this week, so it may take an extra day for me to respond to your feedback.
Must reads...
Subject lines: we're all wrong
New research suggests our fascination with short subject lines might be entirely misplaced. Long is the new short. Or is it? The research has been widely misreported and misinterpreted. Get the real insight here.
Should you certify your emails?
Can you solve your delivery problems in one swoop by paying to get your emails certified? A special report provides all the answers and background...
How do you decide whether to certify your emails or not? Find out here.
What are your certification options? Get the details on Goodmail, Sender Score Certified, Habeas and SuretyMail.
SuretyMail? Learn more about the accreditation service you don't know (but should) in an exclusive interview with ISIPP's Anne Mitchell.
And what about the future? Experts discuss whether "pay to play" will one day become the only way to market by email.
Email design...
Embedded videos not so bad?
The idea of embedding videos directly in the email receives a general thumbs down from experts. But have we all missed the point? Images often fail to render in email, but nobody suggests we banish them from email design. Should we treat video the same? Read more...
Basics...
What are personalized emails?
Personalization means different things to different people. You can only make sense of advice on personalization if you know what practice the advice giver is talking about. This post explains the three main meanings.
Tactics and strategies...
Can you over-personalize?
New scientific research suggests that putting too much personal data in an email can lead to lower clickthroughs. Discover the lessons for marketers here.
Personalization data and best practices
A new Aberdeen Group report looks at personalization challenges and highlights the best practices associated with high-performance email marketing programs.
There's also survey data and recommendations on how tactics like segmentation and advanced personalization improve your numbers. Definitely worth a read.
So that's why your open rate jumped
The last email got a higher open rate, so let's use that subject line approach again. But wait...this post and comments offer 14 other plausible explanations for more opens, illustrating the danger in assuming one cause for an observed change.
That's it for this issue - see you again July 28th, with more from the New Email Marketing series and some sign-up form test results...
Copyright Mark Brownlow 2008
