We are happy to announce that our latest marketing report, The 2010 Holiday Marketer, is available for download today… and it totally rocks!

I mean that literally, of course. Take one look at this report, and you’ll understand what this holiday season is really all about: marketing like a rock star.

Want to know how to win over your adoring fans and go double platinum? Let me to take you on a cinematic, guided tour of the data from the report to find out what it takes to be an email marketing rock star this holiday season.

This year, email volumes will “go to 11″

Every year, email volumes peak during the holiday season, managing to surpass the previous maximum output of the year before. But how is it even possible to exceed what was previously considered the maximum?

By taking your email program “to 11.”

Experian CheetahMail estimates an overall email volume increase of 15 percent to 20 percent for the 2010 holiday season in comparison to Holiday 2009.

This means that email marketers, just like Nigel Tufnel of Spinal Tap, have figured out a way to ratchet up their volumes “to 11.”

Volumes just keep going up, so email marketers had better be prepared for the barrage of messages coming from their competition and act accordingly.

Read More »

Just in time for the holidays, our friends at Experian Marketing Services have produced a valuable new research report packed with useful tips and insight for maximizing holiday marketing strategies this year. So what do we expect to see this holiday season in respect to the email marketing industry’s performance? The 2009 holiday marketer: Benchmark and trend report has some interesting points well worth your consideration, especially for all of you email marketers out there looking to gain an edge on the competition this winter.

Taking a look at the data from the report, there are a number of relevant tidbits that merit a quick shout-out:

• Email’s “eco-friendly” reputation may not hold as much sway with environmentally-conscious customers as you thought, so don’t cancel the print catalogs just yet.
  “Surprising to many, Behavioral Greens, which are the group of consumers that are most green aware according to Experian Simmons, account for nearly half of all catalog purchases.”
• Shorter really is sweeter when it comes to email subject lines during the holidays.
  “All industries with the exception of consumer products and services experienced the highest open rates when using subject lines of 25 characters or less last year.”

Read More »