It was rag week at a London teaching hospital and the behaviour of the student doctors encouraged you to avoid entering hospital unless absolutely necessary. One particular jape consisted of a skeleton tied to an automatic traffic signal, thumbing for a lift with a piece of cardboard reading Timbuktu around its neck. It caused traffic … READ MORE »
You might well have noticed a certain lack of professionalism regarding the use of pre-headers in email marketing being shown by the giants in the business. Yet their effective use can, and probably will, increase open rates dramatically. If you don’t plan your pre-headers carefully you are losing sales and therefore profits. I know I … READ MORE »
I used to work for a large, non-email marketing, company that was under considerable public scrutiny as it was often the source of quite startling headlines. Senior staff were demoted sideways if their department was the target. Fault was an inconsequence. I was given the task in coming up with a defence in the, rather … READ MORE »
You will have been told that you should test everything you do, and then test again. An email marketing campaign that doesn’t include a split test somewhere in it is a waste. You’ll never get that opportunity again. Split testing is a simple system of problem solving. You identify something that is of concern, for … READ MORE »
I don’t like being prescriptive, but it is not a good idea to use an email marketing template ‘straight out of the box’. It will have been designed by a professional, and as you’ve had no graphic art experience, you might not feel the need to prove it by messing it up. There’s only so … READ MORE »
If you run email marketing campaigns frequently, you will know how difficult it is to maintain quality of copy. An internal weekly legal magazine managed it by the tried and tested method of enlisting a columnist. He became well known both inside and outside the industry. Despite knowing that the question must have been put … READ MORE »
When I was a young, aspiring writer I knew the first names of editors but was frightened of using them. My rejection rate gradually dropped as I fathomed what each one favoured. I was targeting my submissions before email marketing was invented. My next step was to predict the style of image each editor would … READ MORE »
You will have read the report published this year by the Google Project Zero team on vulnerabilities that, it appears, all modern computers are subject to. Email marketing, and any other business that is dependent on personal data, is under threat. The names given to these vulnerabilities, Meltdown and Spectre, are hardly reassuring. Given that … READ MORE »
I reviewed a couple of articles I’d written two or so years ago on the subject of how mobile devices are changing email marketing and I was surprised to find words I hardly use nowadays, such as Blackberry. Obviously, many people still prefer them but they are becoming niche. It shows how quickly technology develops … READ MORE »
The role of sub-editor is a difficult one. Someone in your team will have the responsibility for that function, if not the title. In essence, a sub-editor will check all copy, that includes the email marketing campaign as well as the website, for spelling, making sure everything fits, and giving feedback to the writers in … READ MORE »