Email marketing is an essential tool in your digital arsenal, and finding the right email marketing resources to guide you can be invaluable. That’s because email marketing remains one of the most effective ways to reach customers. 2020 looks likely to bring us some exciting advances.
Experts predict everything from crazy-responsive email inboxes that keep relevant content from getting lost in the shuffle to hyper-personalized email experiences that make customers feel like brands are talking to them and them alone. A recent report from Litmus (download here) tells us that email is more likely to be around in 10 years than any other marketing channel we’ve got.
Staying on top of what’s happening in this exciting channel is going to be vital for anyone in our field this year. Here are all of 2019’s best resources to help you do just that.
The Best Email Marketing Blogs in 2019
Let’s start with the Litmus blog, since we kicked off with their stellar 2020 trends download. This blog was on our 2018 list too, and it continues to impress.
In fact, it feels like it’s improved. The writing is crisp and snappy as well as useful.
Check out these recent posts:
Another blog that’s back again from 2018, and they’re still fantastic. This is a great one if you’re looking for a blog aimed primarily at marketing agencies instead of at B2C or B2B businesses. That’s not to say you won’t find content for business owners too, but it’s also equally relevant to the agencies that might serve them.
Some of the insights are great, because they’re not just the same old things we’ve seen elsewhere.
Check out these recent posts:
The final blog returning from our 2018 list: Mailshake. It remains fun, well-designed, and relevant. They’ve held fast to their focus: transforming email into sales. They continue to put out actionable tips that a reader can put into practice right away.
Recent posts:
Solid, useful material with content relevant both to B2C and B2B. One thing I like about this blog is the way that they often take the time to explain how to make email work with other channels, like Facebook, or SEO.
Check it out:
The folks at Marketo are going to tell you how they really feel with post titles like, “Email Isn’t Dead, You’re Just Doing It Wrong,” and openers like, “I’m tired of people giving email marketing a bad rap.”
They’re also going to give you new ways of thinking about how you do your email marketing. You may indeed discover you’re doing it wrong, but you’ll know how to do it right in short order.
They’re not just here because their name is fun (though it is). They do a good job of staying on top of the latest and greatest, and will show you how to do it.
Sometimes they’ll show you right down to how to do the code behind the scenes. Sometimes it’s about the psychology that explains why certain email techniques work.
Here’s what I love about this blog: highly scannable posts, crazy useful downloadable resources, and plenty of relevance. It’s clear the writers have put a lot of thought into creating useful resources for the busy reader.
Here’s another company with an insanely fun name.
They do so much right on their blog, too. They interview experts. They make their blog fun and easy to read.
They even write long, meaty-posts backed by lots of research. You’ll need more than 2 minutes to read one, but they’ll be well worth your time.
Email Monday’s visually appealing blog is right on top of some of the top trends in the email ecosystem. If you wanna talk accessibility, personalization, interactivity, and user-generated content, then this blog is for you.
Recent posts:
While the Convince & Convert team talks about far more than email on their blog, their email section remains jam packed with great advice. Jay Baer of Convince and Convert is all about the “so what,” as in, “so what does this mean for my business?”
All the other experts who write on his blog are the same.
The Best Email Marketing Articles of 2019
Check out these reads as we enter 2020 to prime yourself for your best year of email marketing yet. These articles all came from blogs and sites that didn’t make our Top 10 site list.
- How Artificial Intelligence Can Benefit Email Marketing – If you’re serious about reaching your customers with email, then you might need to get serious about incorporating AI. Here’s how, where, and why you should do so.
- A Geek’s Guide to Managing Your Email List in 2020 – Get some quick, useful advice from experts that will help you make your campaigns way more effective almost immediately.
- Are You a “Megaphone” Email Marketer? – Some fantastic advice on how to engage customers in two-way conversation, which is the big topic in the email ecosystm as we head into the New Year.
- Email Marketing Whitelisting Tips: No More Bouncing – It doesn’t matter how great your content is if the spam filter is just going to eat all of it anyway. This article will tell you how to stop that from happening.
- Abuse Emails: What They Are and How they Impact Your Email Marketing – Even if you follow all of the advice on getting your emails whitelisted, there’s a chance someone will mark your emails as spam, if only by mistake. Here’s what you should be doing about that.
- Four Ways Psychology and Email Marketing Tie Into Each Other – It seems like everyone’s talking about marketing psychology these days, and, well, with good reason. Because it works! Here’s how to make it work for this specific channel.
- 33 Email Marketing Tips in 140 Characters or Less – Ok, ok. Not an article. It is an infographic full of 33 bite-sized insights that are really worth reading.
- Here’s How to Do an Effective Last-Minute Email Campaign for the Holidays – Here it is, the only article this year that made me stop, pull out the notebook where I jot down things I really, really want to remember, and write down not one, but two of the included tips. Not because I was trying to do an effective last-minute email campaign for the holidays, but because those two tips were so good at any time of year. I’ll let you find your own insights, but take two minutes and check out this read.
- What Makes Airbnb an Exceptional Email Marketer – I’m kind of over Airbnb, but I can’t deny they’ve got a good handle on how to do email marketing really well. This article will show you exactly what makes them so great at it so you can apply their strategy to your own campaigns.
- Why Location is a Critical Factor for Email Marketing Success – Emails can literally go all over the world, so if you’ve given zero thought to applying geolocation to this channel, you’re not alone. Still, this Econsultancy article makes a good case for why you should start giving some thought to just that.
Email Marketing Experts to Follow
- Amy Hall – Amy is a Mailchimp Expert and Partner, an email marketing strategist with plenty to say about making campaigns better.
- Adam Q. Holden-Bache – Adam is the author of How to Win at B2B Email Marketing and the Director of Email Marketing at EP Innovation. His feed is a great place to find quick tips on making email marketing better.
- Chad S. White – Chad is the author of Email Marketing Rules and at this point has put out over 3,000 posts all about email marketing. He’s the Head of Research at Oracle Marketing Cloud Consulting.
- Jordie Van Rijn – Remember the Email Monday blog from above? Jordie’s the guy who writes it. His Twitter feed has just as much great stuff in it.
- Andrew Bonar – Andrew is the Founder of EmailExpert and the organizer of Inbox Expo. Right now he’s doing a lot of talking about deliverability. Be sure you catch everything else he talks about!
Email Marketing Tools You'll Want to Invest In
This is not a space where I’m going to talk about clients: everyone has their client-of-choice. The truth is, the best clients really depend on what you’re doing and what your ultimate aim is.
This is for tools that will enhance the campaigns that you’re already running on your client-of-choice.
- Litmus – Back on the list this year, because it remains more relevant than ever. You can use it to test your emails across 90 clients, pinpoint the reasons why your emails are getting caught by spam filters, and identify other ways to optimize performance. You can do quite a few other things too, so check it out if you haven’t done so already.
- RafflePress – In a position to run contests and giveaways? Try RafflePress, which will make it quick and easy for you to do just that. It’s not a direct email-marketing tool, but you can use it to build your lists.
- BombBomb – Back from last year, BombBomb once again stands out as a good choice. It lets you put video in your emails, a trend which is getting hotter than ever.
- TestSubject – Oof. I admit it. I’ve written subject lines that sounded snappy to me, thought about all the rules of good copy…and then forgot to think about how they’d actually look in an inbox. Neveragain, because this year, I’ve found TestSubject. This tool appears to be free.
- Chameleon.io – Here they are again, the guys with a cool name! Wanna design responsive emails? Want templates that follow a similar theme every time you hit send? Want to collaborate with your whole team? Great. Check out Cameleon.io.
What about you?
Opinions are like inboxes: most people have one. Now that you’ve heard mine, I’d love to hear yours.
Is there a tool, an expert, a blog, or a fantastic article I’ve missed? Let me know in the comments below, or reach out to me at @CarmenRane on Twitter (but keep right on calling me Raney, all my friends do). I’m interested in your opinion, and can’t wait to hear from you!
