Automating workflow and content publishing to members without lifting a finger is amazing, but what is more amazing is being nominated for the Best Email Newsletter Design and Engagement by The Canadian Online Publishing Awards (COPA)! 

With that headline, I either have everyone over 40 reading this or only those under 40 who are hoping that I can help advance their cause.

In truth, these words are a direct quote from a woman I met last week at Litmus' Email Design Conference. The whole quote actually goes like this "Look around this room. The whole conference is between 25-40, but the problem is that we all report to people over 40 who don't get it and just keep pressuring us to send bad email."

Then she said, "Please help-- people over 40 just don't get it".

Adam and I are at Litmus' Email Design Conference in Boston today and, as always, the conference always succeeds in delighting the audience. We just sat through a preso by RebelMail who did amazing things through embedding CSS in email that included complicated price calculations, 3-D image rotation and playing a slideshow (or at least giving you that experience). 

You've got your association's email marketing strategy down. Your email design is gorgeous, and it renders well with almost all email clients. Your copy is creative and engaging. Unfortunately, the chances that this email will be read are low. It may be deleted or left to pine in someone's inbox.

While the first thing your members see is the email inbox, it can be the most neglected area when an email is created (or even an afterthought). Every inbox out there shows the subject line and the sender's name for any particular email. Some, however, show some amount of preview text.

One of the most effective ways to enhance open rates of emails (sometimes by as much as 45 percent) is by optimizing preview text.

While changing your email provider isn't as painful as switching out your AMS, you do want to make sure that you've got a good plan for how you want to make the transition as seamless as possible. Additionally, before you switch, you want to make sure that your new provider is going to offer you everything you need to provide the supporting services you need and ensure your email's reputation & deliverability.

We were just asked to choose through our collection of best practice-based info to pull out our most often used resources. It's always a joy to go to HighRoad U and see how much info we've amassed to help tackle the various aspects of digital marketing--especially the black art of email. While we're nowhere close to done in putting together resources to cover today's email marketing methodologies & approaches, here's our top picks based on highest volume of content consumption: