Top 5 Things You Should Focus on in 2013

Top 5 Things You Should Focus on in 2013

1. Data: At the soul of every email marketers plan should be the data you have about your subscribers. Who they are, what are their likes/dislikes, and how they interact with not only your company but also your industry.

2. "Other" Email: Are there other departments or branches of your company that send bulk email? If so, are those emails branded and maximized to their full potential? Do a little digging and be sure you have a handle on everything that your brand sends out.

3. Automation: Do you currently have automated email campaigns in place? If not, maybe try starting with a birthday, or anniversary of sign up campaign. Have fun with these and ease some of the burden of constantly composing manual mailings.

4. Testing: There are always new things to try out in our ever developing space of email. Run a series of A/B tests to see how some of the latest tricks might work or not work for your subscribers. Characters in subject lines, mobile dedicated versions, animated gif's, etc. all make for great tests.

5. Optimization: How do your emails look across email clients? What about mobile? There are many rendering tools available out there to make proofing and tweaking your designs easier. Make sure you always take a look as a subscriber would, at least in your lists top 3/4 ESP's.

Top 5 tips to thinking like a subscriber

1. Filtering from ESP's is common, Gmail uses smart labels now to allow users to mark their incoming mail. ex. "Bulk", "Forums", "Notifications". So train your subscribers to crave your content.
2. Subscribers say the best way to be seen is through GREAT CONTENT. Because, great content gets you higher opens/clicks, which raises your sender reputation, which decreases your probability of being filtered for junk, and increases your delivery rates!
3. Don't change your sending IP's! There is history and reputation behind them so consistency is key.
4. Fun Fact: 88% of all email users don't separate work and home email addresses.
5. Make sure you are on the good side of the law- follow the US CAN SPAM and CANADA's FISA Bill religiously.