The Rebel's Guide to Email Marketing: Grow Your List, Break the Rules, and Win Book

Introduction: Email Marketing Is (Not) Dead 1
Email Is Dead? 3
94% 3
2.9 Billion 5
Email versus Email Marketing 7
The ROI of Email Marketing 8
What to Expect from This Book 9
Endnotes 11
Part I: THE SECRET TO EMAIL MARKETING: LIST GROWTH Chapter 1: Why List Growth Matters 13
List Churn and List Fatigue 14
30% 15
A Few Words about Effective Tactics 17
Endnotes 19
Chapter 2: How to Grow Your List 21
Making the Opt-In Process Obvious and Easy 23
Asking Website Visitors to Subscribe 26
Using Humor and Creativity to Increase Opt-Ins 29
Using Technology: QR Codes and Smartphone Apps to Grow Your List 31
Use Social Media 34
Providing Incentive (WIIFM--What’s In It For Me?) 37
Growing Your Email List Offline 40
Endnotes 43
Chapter 3: Let’s Get Technical 45
To Pre-check or Not to Pre-check 46
Explain the Email List Sign-Up Process 48
Send a Welcome Email 50
Remember, Make a Good First Impression 54
Endnotes 55
Part II: THE ANATOMY OF AN EMAIL Chapter 4: Examining an Email’s Body Parts 57
The Subject Line and From Address 58
The Preheader 59
The Header 60
Table of Contents 60
Main Call to Action 61
Secondary Calls to Action 62
Sharing Your Email 63
The Footer 64
Chapter 5: The First Impression 67
From Name and Subject Line 68
Preheader 72
Header 75
You Don’t Need a Second Chance Do You? 78
Endnote 79
Chapter 6: The Meat and Potatoes 81
Table of Contents 82
Zappos’s Digest TOC Email 82
MarketingProfs’s Approach to Email Table of Contents 83
Main Calls to Action 86
Secondary and Tertiary Calls to Action 90
Buttons vs. Links vs. Images 91
Endnote 96
Chapter 7: The Finishing Touches 97
Social Sharing and Social Connecting 98
Footer 100
Providing Unsubscribe Options 102
Endnote 106
Part III: BREAKING THE RULES Chapter 8: Are Best Practices Really “Best”? 107
Best Practices Are Practices That Are Best for You 108
Test and Test Often 109
What to Expect 110
Endnotes 111
Chapter 9: My Word! You Must Read This Now! 113
Email Subject Line Words to Avoid 114
King Arthur Flour: Achieving Higher Sales Using All Caps and FREE 118
Tumbleweed: More Opens and Click-Throughs Using All Caps and Free 121
The Proper Length of a Subject Line 123
Measuring Success 125
Evidence in Favor of Long Subject Lines 126
The Most Incredible Chapter Ever 129
Endnotes 130
Chapter 10: The Perfect-Looking Email 133
It’s Okay to Send Mostly Text Emails 134
Some Subscribers Prefer Simple Text Emails 137
Writing Letters Versus Pamphlets 139
Text Emails Have a Clean Look 140
Text Works for B2C Marketers, Too! 141
One Big Image Can Work 143
King Arthur Flour’s Image-Heavy Emails 146
Making Mostly Image Emails More Readable 147
What If the Unsubscribe Link Is at the Top of the Email? 152
The Most Headache-inducing, Eye-searing Graphic Possible 157
Groupon’s Creative Unsubscribe Solution 158
Test the Rules; Don’t Just Break Them Outright 159
Beauty Is in the Eye of the Subscriber 160
Ugly Emails That Consistently Perform Well 160
A Split Test of Ugly Versus Pretty 164
Making Assumptions and Challenging Them 167
Endnotes 168
Chapter 11: The Best Ways to Grow Your List 171
Spiders, Scorpions, Snakes...and Popups 172
Installing a Lightbox to Increase Opt-Ins 174
Using Lightboxes on Blogs 175
Adding Lightboxes on a B2C Site 177
Park City Mountain Resort Tests a Popup on Its Winter 2010 Website 179
Choosing an Opt-In: Single or Double 180
Making the Case for Double Opt-In 182
Making the Case for Single Opt-In 183
Village Voice Media Moves from Double to Single Opt-In: Sees Significant List Growth 185
Sending Emails Without Permission 186
Sending an “Opt-Out” Email 189
Using an eAppend 191
Buying an Email List 193
Coming Full Circle 198
Endnotes 199
Part IV: BATMAN (EMAIL MARKETING) AND ROBIN (SOCIAL MEDIA)
Chapter 12: How Email and Social Media Go Together 203
Batman and Robin 204
Email: The Digital Glue of Social Media 205
Social Connecting vs. Social Sharing vs. Social Promoting 208
Social Connecting 208
Social Sharing 210
Social Promoting 212
Endnotes 213
Chapter 13: The Power of Pairs 215
Social Connecting 216
Using Email Marketing to Grow Your Social Following 216
Using Email Marketing to Grow Facebook Likes and Revenue 218
Social Sharing 222
Show Me the Money: How One Online Retailer Netted $250,000 Using SWYN 227
Social Promoting 229
Using Social Media to Grow Your Email List and Make Money 231
A Truly Integrated Email Marketing and Social Media Campaign 233
Two Is Better Than One 235
Endnotes 235
Part V: THE FUTURE OF EMAIL MARKETING Chapter 14: What’s Next? 237
The Current State of Email Marketing 238
Email Marketing Predictions 239
Chapter 15: Go Forth and Conquer 247
What You Know 248
What Now? 249
Four Steps to Email Marketing Success 250
1. Grow Your List 250
2. Plan Your Content 250
3. Determine Success Metrics 251
4. Send, Test, Analyze, Adjust, Repeat 251
And Now, It’s Your Turn 252
Endnotes 252
Appendix A: Your Prize 253
Index 255