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There has been a discussion amongst us email nerds about what is correct in a subject line: “President’s Day” or “Presidents’ Day” or “Presidents Day.” I thought “Presidents’ Day” was correct since this day honors multiple Presidents. Others argued that “President’s Day” is correct since this day honors Washington only. To put this argument to rest, I did some inbox diving for President’s Day, Presidents’ Day and other variations in subject lines.

Here are the results listing the sender and the subject line. What do you think about these? Please share your thoughts!

Results:

• 34 subject lines were analyzed.
• 20 used Presidents’ (59%)
• 10 used President’s (29%)
• 4 used another variation (12%)
• 2 used both another variation and President’s in different emails (6%)

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Subject line testing is not a new concept to email marketing or to this blog.  However, it is an important key to email marketing success. Subject line testing is easy to do and offers concrete results, but is often neglected.

Below is a typical inbox. Which subject lines best grab your attention? Which approach would work for your brand? Which one do you think is the worst performing? There’s only way to know – test it out!

Keep in mind:

• Best-in-breed email programs consistently test their subject lines.
• It is important to verify your past findings and current theories about subject lines instead of making assumptions.
• If you can increase your open rates even slightly by optimizing your subject lines, the potential to increase click and transaction rates increases.

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Every so often there is a new, hot topic in email marketing. Many of these hot topics are adopted widely and eventually become commonplace across the email marketing industry. Some past examples include the ‘view online’ header link, forward-to-a-friend functionality, and social media links. The latest hot topic in email marketing is video.

Why is video in email the new hot topic even though it has been around for a while?
There are a number of compelling reasons why video is such a hot topic. These include:

• The expense of creating and hosting video is falling.
• Rising access to high-speed Internet has given more people the ability to view videos online.
• Video viewing increases engagement by adding context to products and building brand identities.
• It has become easier and easier to create videos. It is hard to find a digital camera or cell phone today that does not also have video creation capabilities.
• Video allows email marketers to stand out more not only in the inbox, but in blogs, and other media and social avenues.
• As the email channel matures, so do email subscribers. Simply receiving an email is no longer the novelty it once was. Subscribers are demanding and expecting more of their emails.

The video-as-landing-page strategy
Over the past year or so there has been some dabbling with adding video in email. But due to rendering issues, deliverability problems, time and resource constraints, file sizes and other obstacles, video has not taken off or become a permanent fixture in most email marketing messages. One proven workaround is by using animated GIF images in lieu of actual embedded videos.

Before we get into Animated GIFs, let’s explore two other common ways that video is currently delivered in email. One, is with an image or other call to action that links to a video. In this “Preview Our New Commercials – Watch Now” example, the Watch Now button redirects to a URL and then plays a video.

The second common technique is displaying an image of what looks like a video. When the “play” button is selected, the viewer is redirected to a URL where the video plays. Both of these strategies are examples of linking to video via email.

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To date, more than 21 million users have the ability to check their email on Apple’s iPhone, but how do these emails render? Here are some iPhone specific guidelines to consider the next time you’re designing an email with a mobile slant.

With a comparatively larger screen than most other mobile devices, the viewable area is still only 480 x 320 pixels in size. Compare this to a normal monitor, which measures at least 1280 x 1024, and suddenly your design has a lot less room to present itself. Since most emails are designed at a width of 700 pixels, the iPhone will automatically shrink the email down by 200% to display the content. This means that your hard-earned email creative has now been reduced to tiny colored dots. Of course, through a choreographed two-finger gesture all of your design can be seen up close, but do you really want your users to take that extra step?

When designing for the iPhone consider the following:

• Set the width of the email to anywhere between 320 and 510 pixels wide. This will ensure your content is clear enough to still be viewed without having to zoom in. If the campaign is geared specifically for iPhone users (e.g. where a new app is available for download), keep the width closer to 320 pixels.
• The above-the-fold area is the part of the email the user will see before having to scroll. On the iPhone, this space is measured at 240 pixels in height. As always, keep the messaging simple and direct with a clear call-to-action.
• Because the iPhone is a wireless device, the download time may vary. More often than not, the user will be inclined to scroll impatiently to the bottom of a current email only to realize it has yet to fully download. To ensure your email will be received in it’s entirety, without delay, consider keeping the graphics to a minimum and use HTML text when possible.

So you or your organization has a Twitter account. Great! But you might have a question or two that needs answering before you can really create synergy between your email program and Twitter.

Here are some common questions email marketers may have about promoting Twitter:

• How do I entice my customers, potential customers and other interested individuals to follow me?
• Is my organization struggling with how to promote our Twitter presence?
• I know that a great way to promote our Twitter account is using email. But what should the email look like?
• What should my email subject line be?
• Should I include an offer? If so, how will the offer work?
• Why would someone want to follow me on Twitter?

These are all valid questions and concerns worth considering before diving into Twitter promotion.

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We’re honored to have a special guest blogger contributing to our site today: Chris Parkin from Omniture! Read on to hear Chris’ thoughts about the power of email and web analytics integrations.

Email marketing continues to be a mainstay in online advertising, but a few trends are forcing marketers to be more disciplined in the way they reach their customers.

Consider the following:

• Your customers are bombarded with an incredible amount of information every day. They have access to innumerable information sources and an unprecedented amount of flexibility in the ways they connect to these resources. Some estimates suggest that the number of emails delivered annually is approaching 62 trillion messages. To put this into perspective, an estimated 1.2 billion people have Internet access in the world. Therefore, the average Internet user will receive 142 emails every day (including weekends). Also, other forms of digital messaging media are continuing to proliferate. One estimate indicates that 81.2 million text messages will be sent to U.S. mobile phone subscribers this year.
• Expectations have changed too. Your customers expect an experience that speaks to them individually – messaging to their basic demographic or market segment is not enough.

So what do these trends mean for the email marketer? Relevance is more critical today than ever.

Two of the best ways to make your messages more relevant is to incorporate timeliness or behavioral data into your campaigns. Fortunately for marketers, integrating web analytics data into email campaigns is an easy way to make messages both timely and relevant. Many of today’s winning email campaigns are using web analytics data to engage customers by reminding them of a product they recently abandoned on a website, or introducing them to additional benefits of a product they just purchased.

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As any seasoned email marketer knows, there are almost an unlimited amount of ways to segment email marketing subscriber data. In the third and final installment of this three-part overview, Jordan Lane provides a summary of some common email segmentation sources, tips, and best practices.

Part III – Segment by acquisition channel

One of the most effective yet often overlooked methods is segmentation by acquisition channel. From my experience working with clients across various industries, I have found that customers acquired through different channels tend to have different behavioral characteristics. Here are some thoughts to consider:

• Email subscribers acquired through co-registration pages will usually respond or convert differently than organically acquired email subscribers.
• Subscribers who have been acquired in-store have already indicated that they are at least somewhat likely to purchase both at a local POS and online. Take the ZIP of the store into account and be sure to coordinate your multi-channel marketing efforts to maximize customer value.
• New email registrations acquired via mail-in forms and call centers may indicate that the customer is looking to shift from print to online shopping. You may consider a “go paperless” email offer to these customers that builds a positive, eco-friendly reputation for your brand – not to mention saving you print costs along the way.

With any segmentation program it is important to take a step back and realize that there is a real person on the other end of each email address. Every time you create an email, ask yourself whether your email content is addressing the specific needs of your audience. Email segmentation is not a one-size-fits-all discipline, but with a little tweaking here and there, you can find the right method for targeting your customer base.