Gretchen Scheiman

Articles by Gretchen All articles by Gretchen

• Email Marketing Resolutions For 2018 in Email Marketing Daily on 12/12/2017
  

  Welcome to the last few weeks of 2017. Most of us have already started 2018 planning, at least in the few moments we can spare from end-of-year insanity. Of course, the ultimate in planning is New Year's resolutions. They may sound trite, and some of us (myself included) may prefer not to make them in our personal lives. But since our professional lives do revolve around plans and goals, resolutions are definitely appropriate. Here are four suggestions for email marketing resolutions for 2018:

• Recovering From Mistakes in Email Marketing Daily on 11/07/2017
  

  Everyone has had to send an "oops" email at least once. But it's not just customers affected when mistakes happen. Your and your team's credibility and ability to get resources in your own organization can take a big hit. Here's how to turn "oops" into an advantage for your team, inside your business.

• Horrifying Email Marketing Requests  in Email Marketing Daily on 10/04/2017
  

  We've all gotten some scary, odd, or downright laughable email marketing requests from clients, co-workers and bosses over the years. October, a month that features Halloween's best frights, is an excellent time to remember the spirit of horrifying requests past, and talk about how to move beyond them.

• Do You Know Your Audience? in Email Marketing Daily on 09/12/2017
  

  It's amazing how easy it is to forget your audience. The day-to-day mechanics of pulling lists, picking products, and designing offers can focus so much of your energy and effort on your internal audience (such as peers and stakeholders) that by the end of it, you've lost sight of who your marketing is really talking to.

• Do You Have An Annual Email Marketing Calendar?  in Email Marketing Daily on 08/15/2017
  

  One of the most helpful tools for email marketers is an annual email marketing calendar. This helps with planning, testing, and innovation in a way that a quarterly approach cannot.

• Three Steps To A Strong Measurement Plan in Email Marketing Daily on 07/14/2017
  

  The most important part of marketing communications is measurement. Yet often this piece is dismissed as "too hard," causing many of us to avoid creating a strong measurement plan. It's time to cut this challenge down to size. There are three parts of a strong measurement plan, and you'll want all three in place so you can be recognized for your contributions to brand success.

• Are Your Goals Smart Enough? 4 Ways To Find Out in Email Marketing Daily on 06/28/2017
  

  It's easy to get caught up in the details of getting campaigns out the door. After all, there are a lot of details, and results don't come in until the campaign gets sent. That's why it's important to take a step back and make sure your goals are smart enough.

• Are You Ready To Add AI To Your Email Marketing? in Email Insider on 05/22/2017
  

  With all the buzz about artificial intelligence, email marketers need to have a plan for adding AI tools to their marketing mix. For most of us, it's not quite that easy. As with big data and content marketing, there is a lot of thought and planning required before you are ready to add AI to your email marketing. Here are four steps to help you get ready:

• How Do I Get Started In A New Email Marketing Role? in Email Insider on 04/19/2017
  

  Last week at a conference, a marketer asked, "How do I get started with email marketing in my new role?" That's a great question. Every time you start a new job, you need to figure out once again how to proceed with email. The details will be different depending on the industry you are in and how advanced your new company is.

• 5 Easy A/B Tests in Email Insider on 03/21/2017
  

  The mantra of direct marketers is "Test, Test, Test." Yet even good marketers sometimes skip testing and give in to the pressure to just get the email out the door. Tests can be hard to set up, especially ones that focus on the two biggest results-drivers: list and offer. But there are gains to be had from easy (well, easier) creative tests. Here are five easy A/B tests to run while you are pulling together the tougher ones.

Comments by Gretchen All comments by Gretchen

• Horrifying Email Marketing Requests by Gretchen Scheiman (Email Marketing Daily on 10/04/2017)
  

  Paula, absolutely! Across all media, it's always a good idea to make sure user id's and passwords are individual, not used by a group. It's sometimes the only thing that saves you. Thanks for commenting!

• 4 Ways To Fight The Privacy Vs. Relevance Battle by Gretchen Scheiman (Email Insider on 09/06/2016)
  

  I can't disagree that we - all of us, both in our jobs (as marketers) and in our personal lives - have been struggling for years with where the privacy boundaries should be. Early research demonstrated very clearly that there isn't a lot of agreement in the general public on the specifics, and that the answer to the question, "Should this be private?" is very much based on context - who asked, and when, and for what purpose. Data security is only one piece of a very big puzzle that we as marketers need to fit together very carefully, and with a lot of respect. 

• Driverless Car? Forget About It. Porsche Says Keep That iPhone In Your Pocket by Chuck Martin (Connected Thinking on 02/02/2016)
  

  640k referred to hard drive space. And you are welcome to your 1.7MB of space. That isn't quite large enough these days, even for a phone. But you do have an interesting point about the brand. The thing is, while Porsche certainly caters to and encourages a brand identity consistent with people who prefer to drive finicky vehicles, there must be a decent segment of their buyers who would be just as happy to have the ability to auto-drive for those long hauls down boring, trafficked roads. So this is probably something they need to put a lot more thought and consideration into.

• Social CRM Is Coming -- Are You Ready? by Gretchen Scheiman (Email Insider on 01/04/2012)
  

  Hi Jordan, thanks for the very insightful response. Agreed that a lot of marketers are still struggling with the basics. But today's article from Morgan Stewart pointed to at least one company that could make it easier for mid-size companies to get the basics nailed down much more easily. So I think this stuff is coming, it'll just take longer to get it productionalized and easy to implement. As for your second question - you're right that there are HUGE privacy implications here. This pretty much lives at an intersection of public opinion where people say, "Make it more relevant" and yet also say, "I want my privacy". So finding that balance is going to be key. Note that in my article, I was careful to point to opt-in and permissioning as a starting point for this.

• Capturing Contact Information by Gretchen Scheiman (Email Insider on 08/15/2011)
  

  @Monica, thanks! All of us email folks who have tried to articulate these concepts many different ways over the years have a lot of valuable expertise that the new social and mobile list builders will definitely need. I appreciate the time you took to comment. @Tom, congrats on your new form builder. Definitely timely.

• Integrating Social: More Than Just Adding Content To Your Emails by Gretchen Scheiman (Email Insider on 06/13/2011)
  

  This seems to have been a swing and a miss for me. My point was that email and social have been little more than a bunch of content so far. In fact, there is a huge opportunity to use data from social to drive triggered emails and increasingly relevant messaging. However, no one has yet nailed the data parsing issue - and it's not an easy one! Before we can take advantage of social, we need to be able to parse the data. It's all about the data Kordek. ALL about the data. Any company that loses sight of that is going to be playing in a tiny sandbox instead of the big wide world. Glad you liked the article. More on this later.

• Email Decision-Making: Beyond Revenue Or Best Practices by Loren McDonald (Email Insider on 04/21/2011)
  

  Nicely articulated summary of the many decision factors businesses need to take into account when making changes to their email programs. Even when there are "best practices" or at least commonly used practices, there is no one right answer.

• Four Things You Can Do Now About Privacy by Gretchen Scheiman (Email Insider on 04/18/2011)
  

  Good points Bill. Thanks!

• Is Email Marketing Really A Conversation? by Chad White (Email Insider on 03/30/2011)
  

  Hi Chad, the analysis and data collection you have lumped under "listen" are the baseline requirements for doing any marketing - including "old school". The segmentation (list and content) efforts you called "responding" have always been requirements to consider someone a good "old school" marketer. (Even if they've at times been beyond our reach to achieve). The only "new school" about this is calling analytics and segmentation "listening" and "responding". Since neither are generally very transparent to the customer - are you sure these are really activites that evidence "listening" or "responding" or even "new school" marketing?

• Maximizing Results When Email Isn't About Sales by Gretchen Scheiman (Email Insider on 03/21/2011)
  

  Kurt, a dedicated post is a great idea. It can be challenging to find the bounds of how to share your content across social media, but when you can share it's a great way to gain new interest. Thanks for commenting!

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