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Best Email Marketing Strategies and Tactics of 2009

While social media marketing gets the headlines, email marketing remains an effective and increasingly used tool in marketer’s toolboxes. After nearly 20 years, it may not seem as sexy as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, but used properly, it’s a proven medium that generates cost-effective results. How has email marketing changed in the last few years? What tactics should email marketers be using today to grow subscriber lists, maximize deliverability and generate click-throughs and conversions? How can email and social media marketing be combined to increase the effectiveness of both?

Get the answers to these questions and more here in the best blog posts and articles on email marketing from the past year.

Email’s new role in digital marketing by iMedia Connection

Simms Jenkins outlines five shifts in email marketing fundamentals and how these developments should influence new campaigns.

7 Tips For Responsible Direct Email Marketing by 7th Dimension Sites

Scott T. Smith prsents a helpful list of tactics for using email marketing the one “right way.”

3 steps to stellar welcome emails by iMedia Connection

Chris Marriott offers guidance on capitalizing on new email subscribers based on common plotlines of 1980s teen coming-of-age movies.

Make Email and Social Media Work Together: Interview with Sergio Balegno by MarketingSherpa

Sean Donahue interviews senior analyst Sergio Balegno about tips for combining social media with email marketing to help “one message exponentially, virally grow to reach a very large audience.”

Email, Social Media Merged To Create Marketing Channel by MediaPost Online Media Daily

On the same theme as the post above, the brilliant Laurie Sullivan demonstrates how to combine email marketing services with tools like Facebook, Bebo and Digg to extend the reach of email messages through social channels.

10 Ways to Get More Clicks in Your Email Campaigns by VerticalResponse

Janine Popick offers helpful tips for increasing email click-throughs including image liks, headline links, free gifts, expiration dates and personalization.

Best practices for recruiting email subscribers by iMedia Connection

Spencer Kollas supplies advice on boosting email subscriptions by using other common processes to attract subscribers and offering customers clear incentives for signing up.

How to Get Your Mail Past the Inbox Bouncers by ClickZ

Noting that “getting your e-mail opened and read by your recipients is like trying to get into the most exclusive club in town,” Stefan Pollard explains how to use authentication and better branding “to move (your) e-mail past all the wannabe guests and into the club.”

11 email design best practices by iMedia Connection

Ryan Buchanan details design tips and tricks for organizing your key messages, crafting compelling subject lines, and capitalizing on common reading patterns and use of preview panes.

MarketingSherpa’s 2009 Email Awards Gallery: Get Inspired by These Exceptional Campaigns by MarketingSherpa

Get inspired by MarketingSherpa’s annual gallery of winning email designs that reflect both creativity and effectiveness in delivering exceptional results.

Closing the Click: Eight Tips for Creating Landing Pages that Sell by iMedia Connection

Robert Boman advises using a set of basic techniques for capitalizing on email clicks to convert readers, such as carrying through with consistent imagery, repeating the call to action that drew in the reader, keeping your message relevant and not making readers hunt for the next step to take.

Why do email marketing? by Email Marketing Reports

Mark Brownlow answers objections to email marketing based on concerns about spam and social media using compellig statistics such as “email marketing generated an ROI of $43.62 for every dollar spent on it in 2009″ and “a November 2009 survey of B2B marketers found that email marketing was likely to see more spending increase than any other form of online marketing bar website development.”

7 fixes for terrible subject lines by iMedia Connection

Wendy Roth recommends clear language and calls to action, personalization, time-sensitive offers and other techniques for maximizing the impact of this critical element in email campaigns.

Forrester Wave Report Cites Email Marketing Service Provider Leaders by Demand Gen Report

Noting that “Forrester’s March 2009 US Interactive Marketing Forecast Online Survey found that 92% of respondents are currently using email marketing and spending is expected to balloon to $2 billion dollars by 2014,” Forrester ranks the best providers based on their research; ExactTarget, Yesmail and Experian’s CheetahMail are among the top picks.  (Keep in mind however that Forrester’s primary audience is large enterprises; for small to midsize firms, ESPs like Constant Contact and VerticalResponse should definitely be in the consideration set.)

How to protect your email reputation by iMedia Connection

David Fowler shares tips for increasing deliverability using double opt-in, careful list selection and working with email service providers on feedback loops.

Tags: CheetahMail, Chris Marriott, ClickZ, Constant Contact, email marketing strategy, email marketing tactics, email marketing tips, ExactTarget, Janine Popick, Laurie Sullivan, Mark Brownlow, MarketingSherpa, Sean Donahue, Social Media Marketing, VerticalResponse, Yesmail

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 20th, 2010 at 7:45 am and is filed under Email Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.