As my colleague Julia Peavy mentions in her recent post, frequency of email goes up for floral retailers around Mother’s Day. I thought we’d take a look at how some other marketers leveraged the holiday.

Next to flowers, another common way to celebrate Mother’s Day is to eat out with family. Not surprisingly then, OpenTable leveraged the holiday by send several Mother’s Day themed emails that each took a slightly different approach. The first email takes the approach of showing the subscriber...

With the launch of iOS 6 came the Passbook feature which allows consumers to store coupons, loyalty cards and tickets on their iPhone or iPod touch.  There were quite a few articles in the fall about which companies were onboard including Target, Starbucks, American Express and Walgreens. This list gives even more insight into who is using Passbook.  I realized the other day, however, when I received an email with a prominent Passbook call out, that I’m surprised I haven’t seen more of them...

Where did the year go?  Back in January I recommended that marketers, if they hadn’t already, get started on optimizing for mobile.  Well, now that it’s the end of the year, let’s take stock.  Here’s a short version of that list:

• Learn what percentage of your subscribers is viewing your emails on a mobile device
• Review how your emails currently look on various mobile devices
• Look for differences in mobile viewership between campaign types to help prioritize
• Be concise with content
• Don’t put tap...

Marketers have long asked subscribers for their feedback on product purchases and many ask, at the point of unsubscribe, why a subscriber is leaving.  But we’ve seen more marketers trying to get out in front of the issue of program relevancy instead of waiting for a subscriber to move into a state of inactivity or to unsubscribe.  “Rate this email” type calls to action are becoming more common.  Below is an example from British online grocery retailer Ocado.

A “Rate this email” call to action...

There are plenty of good reasons why people unsubscribe from your list. But sometimes an unsubscribe is not actually an unsubscribe. Sometimes your subscribers really just want a way to get less email or get different email.

But sometimes, what they really want is even simpler: they just want to change their email address.

I have to say, as an email marketing consultant who works with lots of top-brand clients, I’m perplexed that one of the most basic best practices – giving your subscribers an...