In her latest MediaPost Email Insider column, Ogilvy’s Gretchen Scheiman introduces B2B email marketing to social media’s darling, Twitter.  Check the four top places where Twitter content can add value to B2B emails here.

Ben & Jerry’s announcement that they would no longer use email in the UK set off a flurry of reactions, from CMOs asking their staff whether they still need email to an entire industry up in arms over the news.  As a participant on the Inbox Insider’s list (a list of influential email industry folks), Ogilvy’s Gretchen Scheiman wanted to share the thinking from other marketing folks.

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Gretchen Scheiman gives some advice on one of the toughest challenges in email marketing: Managing Cadence.  See her article on the MediaPost Email Insider blog.

Effective, cost-efficient segmentation is the holy grail of email marketing. This Holiday season, a major retailer resolved to maximize revenues from the email channel by segmenting their customer base and sending more targeted emails.

To do this, they challenged agency partner Ogilvy to help them overcome two of the biggest hurdles most companies face when they decide to segment and target: what to do with the data, and how to keep creative costs reasonable while increasing the number of versions exponentially.

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It’s that magical time of year, the Holiday season once again.  Every day the retail email fairy leaves me well over 20 (some days over 40) red and green emails to spread joy and cheer throughout my inbox. I have begun to understand how time-consuming Chad White’s http://www.retailemailblog.com job must be.

The Holiday season is an excellent litmus test of how far direct messaging has come - and how much further it needs to go. In arguably the most competitive drive period of the year, retailers should be showcasing their direct messaging chops to break through the clutter, driving revenue and margin.  The epitome of direct marketing is relevance.  Yet the evidence in my inbox points to Holiday messaging firmly entrenched at the other end of the spectrum: one-size-fits-most messaging, with discounts of 20%+ thrown in to catch the eye.

Disappointed, I briefly considered checking last year’s emails to see if any retailers chose to reduce costs by re-using their Holiday 2008 creative.*

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