   Research LibrarySee through the eyes of our expert research team—read studies and analyses of breaking trends.
March 1, 2010
Because email clients support different CSS and HTML coding, getting your emails to render correctly in all the major email platforms can be challenging, especially since support tends to change without notice. Rendering challenges are compounded by the fact that...
Download January 8, 2010
2009 saw record email volumes from retailers. Last year, the top online retailers tracked by the Retail Email Blog each sent an average of 132 promotional emails to each of their subscribers, a 12% increase over 2008--and 39% increase over...
Download December 21, 2009
You've got your Christmas tree decked out, your wreaths hung and mistletoe strategically placed, but something's missing. That's because you forgot your Holiday Subject Line Word Tree! Created from the subject lines of over 700 retail emails sent from Nov....
Download December 2, 2009
With retailers relying more heavily on email marketing this holiday season, both Black Friday (Nov. 27) and Cyber Monday (Nov. 30) hit all-time highs in terms of email volume. "Cyber Sunday" (Nov. 29), the day before Cyber Monday, also saw...
Download November 19, 2009
Multichannel marketing is becoming an imperative as the number of channels has grown. And rather than weakening email marketing, the proliferation of channels has made the channel even more dynamic and powerful. At the same time, as the number of...
Download September 21, 2009
Preheader text is HTML text that appears before or sometimes within the header of an email. It's important and growing in popularity because of the prevalence of image blocking by email subscribers and the increasing use of image-unfriendly mobile devices...
Download August 13, 2009
Long before retailers hang any wreaths or tinsel in their stores, they send out emails promoting their Christmas deals to their subscribers--lots of emails! Last year we tracked more than 4,700 emails from more than 100 top online retailers during...
Download August 6, 2009
There's been some murmuring in the industry about the death of forward-to-a-friend (FTAF) lately because of the emergence of share-with-your-network (SWYN) functionality. Unlike FTAF, which is generally one-to-one sharing, SWYN allows subscribers to share an email's content with all their...
Download July 14, 2009
All five installments of our Executive Series on Email Marketing have now been released and are now available as a single download. The series is an educational tool for marketing managers to use with executive teams that might not have...
Download July 14, 2009
Under pressure from the weak economy, companies are being tempted to trade the long-term health of their email program for a quick boost in short-term sales by ditching industry best practices. In addition to over-mailing--which is cited by 73% of...
Download July 7, 2009
It's certainly easiest to track online sales driven by email marketing, but don't overlook the power of email to get subscribers engaged with other channels where results are more difficult to measure. The fourth installment in our Executive Series on...
Download June 22, 2009
The knowledge and expertise needed to succeed at email marketing is significantly different from what's needed to excel at direct mail and online marketing. The third installment in our Executive Series on Email Marketing, "How Email Marketing Is Different from...
Download June 15, 2009
The Smith-Harmon team reads tens of thousands of emails each year to stay current on trends and gather new ideas to give our clients an edge in the inbox. We've assembled 20 B2C emails from the past year that really...
Download May 27, 2009
Sending an additional email campaign can appear rewarding when looked at in isolation. However, there are indirect and opportunity costs associated with increased frequency that could result in lower ROI for your email program as a whole. The second installment...
Download May 18, 2009
Though not the most labor-intensive or generally eye-catching piece of your email creative, the navigation bar is a huge driver of clickthroughs and requires a unique approach, distinct from that of your site navigation. The seven-page, solution-packed reportlet will equip...
Download May 12, 2009
With email standing strong as a recession-friendly marketing channel, we're excited to partner with you to help raise the profile of email both within your organizations and in the marketing world at large. Now is our chance to work together...
Download April 30, 2009
Rough sailing in the economy has unfortunately brought about a number of brand casualties in the retail world, and it's likely that more brands will face challenges in the days to come.
Download April 20, 2009
Many email marketers are paying more attention to optimizing their creatives for preview
panes, ensuring that emails include meaningful content in the first 300 pixels or so of
height. However, some marketers are not paying enough attention to the other important
inbox dimension: width.
Download April 1, 2009
It's incredibly difficult to avoid making at least small slip ups and mistakes in the fast-paced world of email marketing. However, as cringe-inducing as some oopsies are, most do not rise to the level of requiring an apology email. For those that do, there is a set of best practices worth noting. This 13-page reportlet discusses when an apology is needed, how to limit the scope of apologies, apology email formats, and 7 tips for creating a good apology email.
Download March 10, 2009
The welcome email is probably the single greatest opportunity that email marketers have to engage subscribers and drive action. Welcome messages generate superior open rates, arriving ideally at a time of maximum receptivity. And done well, they create a halo effect that boosts subscribers’ engagement with subsequent promotional and trigger emails.
Given the golden opportunity that welcome emails present marketers, it’s unfortunate that so many still let the moment pass—or bungle the interaction with uninspired messaging. After examining the welcome email practices of 112 of the largest online retailers, Smith-Harmon found that only 76% of the retailers sent out welcome emails. While that’s up from 72% in 2007 and 66% in 2006, it’s disheartening that more companies aren’t seizing this key marketing moment. Download January 15, 2009
The holidays may be over for regular folk, but for us email marketers, not so much. We're still culling through all the data to get a detailed view of the '08 holiday stats and facts. Thanks to our resident research expert, Chad White, we now have a new FREE reportlet to help us sort through the mountain of numbers and focus on the biggest stories.
Download January 6, 2009
If you're in the midst of planning your 2009 email marketing strategy, this reportlet from Chad White, Smith-Harmon's research director, is a definite must-read. It's packed with stats, trends and charts about the overall retail email volume, frequency and timing among the top online retailers in 2008. Want to know which days of the week were most popular to send retail emails? Interested in the top 20 retail email days of the year? Ready to learn what the SECOND biggest retail email season was, behind Christmas? Fasten your seatbelt and get ready for a few surprises.
Download December 22, 2008
The holidays are about getting together with friends and family, exchanging heartwarming presents, catching up on family news, feasting until you hurt and, of course, playing MAD LIBS. Wanting to honor this enduring tradition, the Smith-Harmon team has put a...
Download December 5, 2008
Online retailers put a lot of bank behind Cyber Monday this year, and the big question is: Did it pay off? That's a big ole YES from Chad White, Smith-Harmon's new Research Director. His latest FREE reportlet, Cyber Monday Sees Record Retail Email Volume is packed with much more than just retail email volume and messaging stats. This 11-page gem gets into a full-on discussion of messaging trends with creative samples.
Download |
