My father owned a kitchen and bath showroom on 7th Avenue in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. He ran the business from when he was a young man to when he retired a few years ago. While he was cordial with people just browsing his store, he would drop everything when a paying customer walked in. If he hadn’t heard from a customer in a while, he would reach out with a phone call. Putting the customer first and always staying in touch are principles that have stuck with me throughout my professional career.

"I've been to a lot of conferences. But frankly, a lot fewer than I used to. Why? It's simple: conferences, especially email conferences, have become an increasing waste of time that fail to deliver (drumroll, please) sustainable ROI."

"While our subscribers sign up for emails to save money on products/services, keep up with industry trends or simply to be entertained, those of us in the industry usually have ulterior motives when opting in to an email list. I subscribe to hundreds of emails - and to email subscription services like Milled, Mailboxr, Patroneer and The Swizzle - so I can keep swipe files on everything from copy to design to offers and more."

Many marketers do not even bother with an unsubscribe survey, and many who do are either learning the wrong thing or ignoring a majority of the data. They may listen to a portion of it, but have unsubscribed from many of the insights that a survey can offer. The unsubscribe survey can be a more powerful tool for both insights and strategy if optimized.

The short answer is that current clients will not notice anything different, per se, what they will experience is an opportunity to have an expanded set of capabilities. If you are happy with the way things are, you are going to be happy with what's coming. If you want more and...

  George: We had a client in the travel industry, an extremely narrow vertical, looking at how they were sending mail and the days of the week they were sending mail and looking at the days their competition was sending mail on and they found there was a whole in the...

"Today, I am going to switch gears to a more tactical focus by sharing where video in email is supported, specific techniques and tools you can use to maximize your in-email video coverage, and best practices you can use to create compelling subscriber experiences."

"For over a decade, marketers were told that the only way to implement video in email campaigns was to include a link in the email pointing to a video playing on a landing page. Placing a video in the email message itself was looked upon as a fool’s errand at best, or the precursor to disastrous deliverability and subscriber experiences at worst. "

"In today’s post, I outline how the landscape has shifted in the world of video in email, and why more marketers are embracing this tactic now than ever before. "

I've spent most of my career writing and speaking about online marketing. But today I want to write about something that is unique to the Brick and Mortar store experience. Something that can't be replicated in an online enviornment. I want to talk about why I shop Macy's. 

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

The following is the Part One of a speech I just gave for the 2011 New York Ad:tech Email Track. It concerns the merging of Email and Social Media. Part Two is on the synergies between Email and Mobile and will be published in a separate blog post.

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.

Influencer Anna Yeaman shares her tips on properly setting the "Viewport" for mobile messaging on the Iphone:

The Safari browser on the iPhone uses a 980px wide viewport. This means any layout less than 980px wide, will appear zoomed out when viewed on the web.

"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.

The U.S. Census Bureau releases the results of its 2010 census this summer and marketers are advised to prepare for some major demographic shifts. In a recent interview I read of Peter Francese, consultant to advertising megalith Ogilvy & Mather and author of the research report 2010 America, I was surprised to learn:

Do you need to go skinny for mobile? There's a huge variety of screen resolutions to design for. Putting aside fluid layouts, how wide should a fixed width email be? According to DeviceAtlas, the four most common mobile device widths are 240px, 128px, 176px and 480px wide (320px is 6th, 640 is 16th). However, when we look at the latest mobile email stats from Litmus and Return Path, the iPhone dominates.

" 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. "