Conversions are Key: Great Sales Emails Use Alt Text
Email is one of the most powerful tools in any marketer's toolbox. It can be used to augment anything from email newsletters, social media promotions and announcements, and even your website. When you send an email that includes a call-to-action (CTA) button or an image, it's important to include alt text so email recipients know what they will find when they click on that link. Great Sales Emails use Alt Text - Period! The issue is alt text and I’m taking a stand. Lack of alt text is a wasted opportunity and I simply do not understand why it happens. Do you see a problem with this email screenshot? This email is missing alt text. [...]
Take Your Transactional Emails from Dull to Dynamic
If you're sending transactional email, you already know transactional emails get a much higher open rate than other ESP marketing emails—from 40% to 85% higher depending on the source you turn to. You probably also know that’s rarely because they’re compelling and interesting. Nope, they’re usually boring. They are literally a transactional message. Yet people open them. Why? The high open rate happens because these emails are expected. I order something, and then I get an email confirming I ordered it. Then another when it ships. As a typical consumer, I look for these emails so I can track my purchases and know when they’ll arrive. As an email copywriter, I dread these emails from my [...]
DMARC: what it is and why you need it now.
With the rise in email scams, it is more important than ever to be sure that your business's emails are authentic. DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication Reporting and Conformance) is an email validation system designed to protect your organization's email domain from spoofing and phishing scams. It uses your existing email authentication protocols such as SPF (Sender Policy Framework) and DKIM (Domain Keys Identified Mail) to determine your email message's authenticity. It adds an essential piece of functionality of reports back to the domain owner, who can then decide who is sending email on their behalf. DMARC: what is it? The DMARC tool adds a level of certainty on whether an email is legit. In a nutshell, [...]
7 Hidden Costs of Switching Email Service Providers (ESP)
If you’re switching email service providers, one of the questions that’s likely top of mind is, what will it cost to move from one ESP to another? Although there are steps you can take to make the ESP migration easier, you still might not understand the real costs. Based on anecdotal evidence from watching—and helping—clients switch email service providers, both before and during their engagements with iPost, I’ve pulled together some hidden costs to consider to help you understand those real costs associated with switching ESPs. Please note: This is not a breakdown of the costs of switching email service providers, nor a guide to figuring out if the cost is worth it. It is, however, [...]
Doing an ESP Migration? Avoid These 7 Pitfalls
For Basic ESP Q & A, refer to this previous post for What is an ESP?. You thought going through the ESP selection process was hard? It might look like a walk in the park compared to the actual ESP migration. Moving from one ESP to another involves many different people and parts, and how well you do the migration affects how quickly you’ll be up and running with your new ESP. It’s worth doing it well! Yet it’s also fraught with potential pitfalls. At iPost, we see the after effects of ESP migration pitfalls when organizations come to us with issues such poor deliverability, inefficient processes, or lack of insight into how to take advantage [...]
Are Long Emails Bad? How Long Should an Email Be?
Are Long Emails Bad? You Have Been Mislead. In recent years people in the email industry have led you to believe that you should stop writing long emails because email subscribers don't read long emails anymore. Email marketing strategists and thought leaders have subsequently encouraged you to write shorter emails (50 to 125 words - 200 words) or image-heavy with little copy and bullet points because subscribers "scan." The industry has said that no one likes to scroll on emails unless you have valuable content, and only then should you have your most valuable content at the top to grab their attention. Captain Obvious called on the former and asked that I tell you "HOGWASH" on [...]
Gmail Inbox Deliverability – Prevent Gmail Spam
GMAIL IS EMAIL KING. Gmail is a big deal for B2C email marketers. Gmail email addresses can make up 40-80% of your list and cause headaches for marketers who need to have high inbox placement to be successful. Gmail has over 1.5 billion users, a vast email client market share, and is always innovating around the email experience while continuously improving its algorithms to determine inbox placement and delivery of your messages. They are demanding that marketers become better at email marketing, and we at iPost agree. We understand your goal is to prevent mail to Gmail users from being blocked or sent to spam. GMAIL ALGORITHM HACKS Let's be clear; there are no hacks or [...]
Introducing a New Email Campaign Type: Re-Welcome Email
THE NEW DORMANTS: I would like to introduce you to Sara and Bob, the new dormants. They are email subscribers you acquired several months ago via an aggressive and expensive digital marketing campaign. We have several points of valuable data on Sara and Bob that were captured during the sign-up process and have been sending them 3 emails a week for months. The problem is that they have not converted. In fact, they haven't engaged with your email program for 9 weeks despite our amazing creative and offers. The new dormants are subscribers who have signed up in the last 3-9 months to email marketing campaigns and have not converted, and their email engagement has gradually [...]
Making Email Fun: V.P. of Customer Engagement Andrew Kordek
I am not afraid to admit it, I love email marketing. I love email so much that the picture of the license plate above is mine. I have spent the last 20 years of my career in email marketing, making email fun for brands that I have worked with and for. The Fun - Highest Grossing Groupon Email "It was August 19th, 2010, at 4:30 am when I arrived at the Groupon offices on the Near North Side of Chicago that I knew something big was going to happen. That day was when Groupon offered the $25 for $50 for the Gap, and the email sends were set to start at around 5:00 am local for [...]
How to Be a Trusted Partner
In business school, aspiring marketers are taught to focus on customer acquisition and customer retention, meaning loyalty. But without establishing trust, there is little chance of loyalty or repeat customers. Trust is the most overlooked—and possibly most important—factor when it comes to customer retention. Trust is not something to be gained from a single marketing technique or data point. Trust is earned! Trust between organizations or people comes from a relationship and it builds over time, with every interaction and touchpoint. Your goal is to become that trusted partner. You want your business to be more than just another vendor. What makes someone a trusted partner? A trusted partner is someone you can bounce ideas off, [...]
10 Annoying Emails You Should Stop Sending in 2025
We all do things we wouldn’t like someone to do to us. We cut people off in traffic, pay bills late, and forget birthdays and anniversaries. It’s not because we’re bad people! We’re only human, and sometimes we get impatient, careless, busy, "hangry", or absentminded—or all of the above. We overlook, forget about or even ignore the Golden Rule that says do unto others as you want them to do unto you. Sometimes, we do this as email marketers, too, and we do unto others—our subscribers and customers—what we definitely do not want to be done unto us. Are you guilty of that occasional violation of the Golden Rule? Are you “that guy”—or gal? Are you sending annoying emails? [...]
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