You'd think that to get half of your subscribers to click through, you might have to give away a million dollars every month. Publishers Clearing House actually does give away millions of dollars, but that wasn't enough on its own to earn a significantly higher-than-average response rate on its email ... more

Organizational challenges can be the silent killer to achieving relevance in direct digital marketing, placing constraints on innovation and on the adoption of technology and best-practices, or limiting the manpower to create compelling campaigns and programs. You can do everything else right, but failure to address organizational challenges can torpedo an ... more

We are facing economic challenges the likes of which many of us have not experienced before. As professionals, how do we break away from this stagnation and take advantage of opportunities to grow your business? more

"Relationships don't just happen, they are built—one experience at a time," says Joel Book of ExactTarget. And lucky for us, Joel has mapped out the process of doing just that via email marketing. more

You know that saying about how you can't understand where you're going unless you understand where you've been? That's the reason we've pulled together this list of the top stories of 2009. more

We no longer use the Web just for browsing, we use it for doing: posting videos, creating content, sharing things, and connecting with people and organizations. Welcome to "the Engaged Web," a new world where passive websites have been replaced by engaging Web applications and where visitors have become users. ... more

Most consumers who use Facebook and are a "fan" of a company or brand don't believe they have given those companies permission to market to them; many don't believe marketers are welcome in social networks at all. But here's how companies can connect with fans without turning them off. more

Take a minute and think about the folks with whom you socialize. You may have a professional network (LinkedIn) and a personal network (Facebook). You may tweet for fun or business, or for both—or maybe you just follow some sports figures on Twitter to keep up to date on the ... more

The holiday season is the most important time of year for retailers, when aggressive goals are set for increased traffic and sales, both in-store and online. Email marketing is a powerful tool that retailers can use to build their brands and increase sales during that crucial period. more

The pumpkins come out, the days grow shorter, the weather cools, and there's no mistaking that the holiday season is upon us, even though we're barely past the back-to-school rush. Already, it's holiday marketing time. Yet, in recessionary periods, what is normally a festive season is not all sweetness and light—for consumers ... more

All the time spent planning your campaigns seems like a waste if a large number of your email messages are not making it to your subscribers' inboxes. Moreover, the constant evolution of technology means more people are checking their email with their mobile devices. For email marketers, that means one thing: ... more

There are many approaches to using email-campaign metrics to measure and improve marketing performance. The following are the top five approaches, along with appropriate measures and usable insights for each. more

Publishers, membership-based organizations, and anyone who manages subscriptions can benefit from triggered emails by using date-based triggers to remind customers to renew. Automating this process saves time and money. Even more important, using triggered emails can significantly boost your response rates on renewals. The following case studies illustrate how three organizations ... more

Marketers face a bit of a quandary in deciding how social to be. There is a seemingly endless number of social networks, all with conversations that might be relevant to the business. When it comes to email, the issue becomes trickier still: If supporting every social network out there is too ... more

It's high time for email marketers to assess campaign performance in terms of the business and marketing goals, objectives, and contribution expectations that matter. So how do you figure out what matters? Hint: There is no one-size-fits-all answer. more

Here's how Nature Made is combining email and social networking to build stronger email connections with customers and prospects. more

Consistently expanding your opt-in list is one means of further increasing your email returns. The following five-step program is aimed at helping you achieve that goal. more

Email marketing has rapidly become all about quality: the quality of the sender's content and the quality of the sender's email addresses. Keeping the content simple and valuable is the key to crafting a quality email message. Trying to cram too much useless information into a message will leave the ... more

In every email campaign, you should have direct links to specific pages on your website, helping you gauge and track what's moving the meter in your emails. If you're using a proper email service provider (ESP), you should be able to easily see in real time who clicked on those ... more

What to send, and how often, are the top questions facing any email-marketing-program manager today. Yet, all too often, frequency for the sake of frequency trumps relevancy in this channel. It's a classic catch-22: Email works so well that it runs the risk of undermining its own potential. more

Twitter and Facebook might make for captivating marketing headlines, but the same savvy Chief Marketing Officers who are embracing social media are also quietly reinventing a less-buzzy marketing technique: direct mail. more

Email is one of the easiest, most affordable, and most effective marketing tools out there. Nonetheless, launching an email-marketing program can seem a daunting challenge, especially for time-strapped entrepreneurs and small-business owners. more

Predictive analysis has a long and profitable history with direct mail. Millions of dollars have been saved by focusing on those customers most likely to buy—and not mailing to those who are unlikely to be interested. Email marketing is a different story. Emails are so cheap to send that the attitude ... more

Sometimes doing a little more for your email subscribers can make a huge difference. Tafford Uniforms of North Wales, Pa., faced a challenge to engage email subscribers because of two common but seemingly incongruent realities. more

There are five keys to making a relevance-centered approach a reality in your direct digital marketing programs(such as email, websites, mobile, and so on). more