"When your organization goes through change, it means you have to re-align your business leaders, your teams, your vendors and sometimes, your customers. What steps can you take to get back on track once you realize you are not aligned? "

"What do you want to accomplish this year in your email program? Sounds simple right? "

"When we started this team almost 8 years ago, we were just trying to easily automate our email conversations and scale globally. Looking back on it now, I can see the phases of development to our current model. And, I can see where we are headed."

"The holidays aren’t just about retail. It’s a great reason to connect with subscribers from B2B through Financial as most everyone enjoys some holiday wishes. "

After over a decade in successful use there is abundant proof that email is not only the connective tissue of all data-driven marketing but also the revenue-producing juggernaut of digital efforts. Yet despite claiming the highest ROI of all direct marketing channels at 28.5%¹, the highest driver of online conversions²and the number two spot (second only to search) in new customer acquisition³ email marketing is still too often swept out of sight, called upon only when we need miracles worked. In my nearly 15 years of experience with the channel, I am too frequently surprised and dismayed that email is not receiving nearly the attention and investment it economically deserves.

"Are companies now relying more on their social media specialists to handle customer service complaints than their customer service departments? Does it take a customer “going public” with their complaints to get proper service?"

"Anyone in marketing knows that the one constant within any marketing team, whether internal teams, clients, vendors, etc., is ego."

"Google’s recent redesign of Gmail has created unprecedented hand-wringing and blog writing. And for good reason. People’s cheese got moved. Hard earned spots in Priority inboxes got lost. But it was the flies in the soup that made everyone give this new place a bad review."

"While you need to personalize content based on your segmentation goals, the cultural greeting can be even more important than the body of the email. First impressions matter."

"My job is to offer email and digital strategic solutions to clients that run the gamut of knowledge and experience between having zero clue what to do with email in their marketing program, those who need to initiate email into their marketing plan, through clients that simply need help optimizing their current email program. "

Part Two of my address at the 2011 New York Ad:tech conference: Email and Mobile:

I’m often asked what I believe to be the number one way to connect email and social media marketing. Last month I tackled that question from the starting point of email. This month I'm addressing it from the perspective of social media.

"Permission as a standard for email is nothing new. Proponents of permission marketing have preached its virtues since Seth Godin first penned his book of the same name in 1998, and many companies and organizations have voluntarily adopted opt-in marketing as their business standard. But in the United States, unlike in the United Kingdom and much of Europe, we’ve always stopped short of legislating permission into email marketing law."

"With so many ways to integrate email and social media we have almost unlimited options for leveraging connection between these two powerful conversation marketing channels. Still, for those at the beginning of the process it pays to know where to start."

It’s easy to bore your customers to death with email: just send them the same type of message repeatedly and you’ll succeed. We're often guilty of this when we send our e-newsletter and little (or nothing) else. And while a newsletter absolutely has a place as a staple in your email marketing program, it should be far from the only type of message you send your customers on a regular basis.

" When it comes to marketing either in Social Media or Email Marketing, it's important to show your audience that you’re human. Show them there are real people and faces behind the corporate facade. Nothing is more important than having a personal connection with your customer whether you live in the B2B or B2C world. "