Top email marketing info sources: 2011 edition
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No man is an iland (no S), and I owe a constant debt of gratitude to those resources that keep me up-to-date with email marketing advice, wisdom and insight.
Each year, I publish a new list of my personal favorites – the people and places who’ve proved their value as an email marketing resource.
It’s a personal list, not an exhaustive one: there are many other wonderful resources out there, particularly for specialist niches. So please feel free to add to my suggestions through the comments.
Media sites
After a few years howling in the media wilderness, email has slipped past the bouncer and is back dancing with the cool kids in the marketing nightclub. Everyone is writing about it.
MediaPost’s Email Insider still ranks as a big favorite, largely because of the top notch columnists there, especially Loren McDonald. Loren’s also the top email personality to follow on G+
ClickZ and me go back well over a decade. It was there I first read about the killer app (yep, email was once the hot new marketing thing). They have six solid columns now.
A special shout out goes to those by Derek Harding, Jeanne Jennings, Mike Hotz and the great Simms Jenkins.
Other media & membership sites I go back to regularly are:
- MarketingProfs (especially the “Get to the Point: email marketing” newsletter)
- Econsultancy
- iMedia Connection
- MarketingSherpa
The latter is worth joining to get access to the back catalog of case studies with real campaign numbers (some of which I even wrote, back when I used to freelance for them).
Finally, a special mention also for SmartInsights, which features email articles by digital marketing Überguru Dave Chaffey and Tim Watson, who always impresses me with his critical analysis and thinking. (Disclaimer: I write there, too).
Blogs, newsletters, etc.
Phew…the number of email marketing blogs and newsletters is somewhere in the four figures by now. Everyone has their personal favorites. Here are mine:
The Retail Email Blog is the go-to place for keeping up with trends in, well, retail email marketing.
Author Chad White also produces regular reports and throws in his own wise insights with his coverage of the sector.
Pay close attention to anything you see by Dela Quist and colleagues at Alchemy Worx (newsletter).
It’s hard to find the correct word to describe their insights, so I’ll put it like this: nobody has made me think harder about email and my own assumptions and ideas than Dela.
The folk at Bronto have kept up a high standard of practical posts for a long time now. Also especially good for retailers to read.
The email design world is blessed with some excellent resources and I’ve already highlighted 22 sources for design inspiration elsewhere. But a quick extra mention for:
- Style Campaign (written by mobile email design Goddess Anna Yeaman)
- CampaignMonitor (Ros Hodgekiss and colleagues offer strong support for the email design community)
- Litmus (sterling work by Justine Jordan)
- Email on Acid
The deliverability world also has some fine blogs. My favorite is Word to the Wise by Laura and Steve Atkins. You’ll also get a lot of useful information and studies out of Return Path.
Good aggregators for those short of time are the Email Guide and the Email Institute. Special shoutouts also to:
- WhatCounts (particularly articles by Christopher Penn, who comes at email from many different and innovative angles)
- The DMA EMC blog (featuring a lot of top UK talent)
- MailChimp (recently the blog has been more service oriented, but check out the article backlog and resource guides)
Statistics, studies and background data
I have separate posts covering sources of numbers and studies you might need for background or presentations. For example:
- Benchmark statistics
- Value of email marketing – why do it?
- How big is email? – webmail and email numbers
- Mobile email use
- Smartphone numbers and market shares
Community sites
I recently joined the Only Influencers member site and email marketing discussion list.
I’m largely a lurker, due to time issues, but have learnt an enormous amount through the willingness of some very clever people (vendors and marketers alike) to share their expertise, results and practical know-how with others.
It’s invitation-only, so contact Bill McCloskey (it’s his brainchild) to see if you would qualify for an invite.
Another public discussion community is the Email Marketers Club run by the delightful Tamara Gielen.
Twitter accounts
Recommending top Twitter accounts to follow is a hopeless task: there are so many good ones. I am annoyingly selective about who I follow, so most of those that I do are going to give you value for your time. Most of the resources mentioned in this post also have associated Twitter accounts.
Special shout outs to:
Andy Thorpe, Jordie van Rijn and Remy Bergsma: all master sharers of email links and insight. Also check the blogs associated with their accounts.
Some other names to watch for: top sharers and/or fountains of insight on Twitter and elsewhere:
- The Trendline Interactive team, e.g. Andrew Kordek
- The Inbox Group team, e.g. Scott Cohen
- The Red Pill Email team, e.g. John Caldwell and Shannon Holato
- Kath Pay, Scott Hardigree, Steve Henderson, Mia Papanicolaou, Spiro Malamoglou and don’t forget pretty much all the people who I follow.
Those getting started, particularly in small businesses
These are email marketing services whose blogs and other content is well suited to small business, often going well beyond email in the topics they address.
Michael Katz’s newsletter is the only one on this planet I find myself reading every issue, even if I don’t have the time to do so. How does he do that?
These ESPs are also well-tuned in to the needs of the smaller email sender:
Bonus people
These are not all email focused, but a few other folk I’ve found struck a chord with me in one fashion or another.
- DJ Waldow, whose monumental enthusiasm and embracement of all things email and social is like having your own personal trainer.
- J-P De Clerck, whose prodigious content output is equally inspiring. More importantly, he has very independent, ethical and forward-thinking views on marketing online.
- Ken Magill, whose coverage of the industry reveals the incalculable value of style, personality and writing skills in creating reader loyalty.
- Jim Ducharme, a top sharer and a writer on email/social media issues with a heart and mind in the right place.
- Robin C Kennedy, the top commenter on this blog…many of his comments deserve their own post. Thanks Robin!
- Kevin Hillstrom, whose blog has taught me more about analysis and measuring the true value of email than I even knew I needed to know.
Author’s note: A couple of the people or organizations mentioned above are also sponsors or clients. A couple are former sponsors or clients. Many I’ve had personal contact with. Many don’t even know I exist. None have bought me a beer.
One or two have sent me t-shirts (I’m a sucker for t-shirts) or chocolate (ditto). All are listed solely on merit and my (inevitably subjective, UK and US-biased) evaluation. Please do add your resource suggestions below!
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28 comments on “Top email marketing info sources: 2011 edition”
I thought the missing “S” was a typo. Oops.
You’re not the first. I had to write that article and put it as a permanent link at the top of my newsletter because so many people hassled me about the typo. Some got quite nasty about it.
It’s a lesson in how not to name a blog. Oh well. Next time I’ll know better!
This is a great list, and we’re honored to be included in your round-up, Mark! What an amazing, smart and inspiring community to be a part of
Wow, thanks for the excellent compilation and including me! Much appreciated, Mark.
Hey Mark, great write-up. I will definitely be checking out some of the references. One site that I think you should include is Email on Acid (www.emailonacid.com). They provide an excellent blog on email renderablity issues/fixes. Thanks again!
Mark: Thanks for including me in this excellent compilation of resources. I second Justine’s comment about how amazing, smart, and inspiring our community is, and I’m glad to be a part of it!
Justine, Scott and Scott – my pleasure!
John – good suggestion and I’ve added to the main post.
Thanks, Mark! I’m honored to be included
Mark:
This list is great. I can’t wait to add to my list!
One more to add as a resource for small businesses:
iContact (http://blog.icontact.com)
Again, great list! Thanks!
Monica
**disclosure: I work for iContact
Hey Mark, I had to look up what prodigious meant. Too bad I don’t have a sponsor to really go full steam. BTW: you should know the input
Appreciate the shout out very much, being described as “having very independent, ethical and forward-thinking views on marketing online” means a lot to me, really. I hope some day it pays
Seriously: thanks and congrats to everyone on this list. I guess it’s not a coiincidence many of them are connections in one or the other way.
Keep up the good work, all. Mark, too bad you can’t put yourself on your own list. So I’ll do it for you: please add your own, you’re a great source and so are your posts on SmartInsights!
Hey Mark…
Thanks for the include.
In my opinion your forgot to mention the number one resource for email marketing information on the net.
Check it out http://bit.ly/ppvVdM let me know what you think.
As always, keep the good stuff coming
)
Maybe thats why I like it much much more than the others
Thank you – fantastic list! Can’t wait to go through them.
One question though, how on earth do you find the time to read even 1/2 of these? Perhaps you don’t require much sleep??
Best,
Danielle Brooks
Jeff – I’d mention the resource you linked to but that guy writes way too long blog posts for my tiny attention span.
Danielle – because of the volume, I shifted a lot of information sources from email/web etc. to web feeds. I then scan my RSS reader quickly each morning and pick out the articles that look useful.
These I read quickly and add the best ones to Excel under different topic headings. So when I want to research “mobile” I have a dozen new articles to look through and process, in addition to anything I’ve written on the topic before.
Takes about 30-45 minutes a day. Which is still a lot, but it’s part of my job, so works for me!
If you’re very pushed for time, a some of those Twitter accounts are very good at highlighting and sharing new stuff, plus the Email Guide and Email institute are good aggregators.
Plus, finally, I managed to convince myself that I don’t need to read everything. If I have a busy week (like last week) then I just ignore Twitter and scan feeds and non-personal email VERY quickly.
J-P: Thanks – had to rescue your comment from the spam folder so sorry for delay in response. Crazy spam filter!
Cheers for the mention Mark, this is truly a great collection of resources.
Also I’m personally enjoying some of Michael Bairstow’s writing lately, of which your self & J-P are a big influence:
http://bit.ly/michaelb-blogs
Hi Mark!
I already tweeted my thanks, but I wanted to add it here too. I’m very grateful to be included with such an august listing of online marketing insight!
Regards,
jim
Wow. What a lot of great info and links to even more info. Thanks so much. I am going to work my way through these links and see what knowledge I can glean from them. I found you by looking at info about email marketing lists. I really needed some insight, so thanks.
Jim – a pleasure!
Deb – thanks for the kind words. Glad the post helps.
great list Mark!
Hi Mark,
Thank you for an excellent roundup list and for adding our AWeber blog to the section on ESPs that focus on smaller businesses and startups. We’re working on lots of new stuff, so hopefully we’ll be back in the 2012 edition, too!
Cheers – Hunter
Just as I look away, my name is up in lights alongside some well respected behemoths of the industry.
Thank you Mark, praise from you is highly valued and much appreciated.
Although I seem to be having trouble uploading one of my unique beer-flavoured, chocolate T-Shirts to this post… I may be doing it the wrong way.
Mark -
Thanks for including the Bronto Blog on your fantastic list! We work hard to maintain high quality content for our readers. Glad you value the work of our many bloggers.
Thanks,
Caroline
Thanks all. I’m on the last day of a vacation, so apologies for late and general reply.
Mark – awesome list as always…but you’ve really outdone yourself this time with all of the categories.
We all know of course you are the best resource and should be first.
Thanks for the nice comments as always.
Thanks for the list – great resource
Thanks for the complete list, and moreso for the commentary.
Great list. These guys should definitely be included as well http://www.emailagency.com