As a marketing professional, it’s always exciting to address new questions.

It’s easy for marketers to take for granted the inherent value of email as a research tool. Much of this has to do with the relative speed with which it can be executed. Some marketers move so fast they short-change the discipline necessary to think about what they want to learn. Many times this isn’t uncovered until after the campaign period and it’s too late to go back.

Most businesses have two kinds of customers: those who are actively using their products and those who are infrequently engaged.

Marketers are continually challenged with finding ways to motivate audiences. In an ideal world, we’d have limitless budgets and the task of delivering eye-popping offers would be relatively easy. We could forgo accountability and wildly incentivize audiences to the point where they would flock to shopping carts. But alas, without considering incentive costs, it’s a virtual certainty our profits would evaporate and we wouldn’t be operating successful businesses.

As a smartphone-dependent culture most of us are thankful whenever we don’t have to pinch-to-zoom an email just to read it. We’ve quickly become used to seeing content at a glance. As a result, we tend to ignore emails if the information we expect to find isn’t front and center.

When it comes to lifecycle marketing, inactive customers are often a mystery. Marketers think, “Why would a specific group of customers go through a complex signup process and never actually use the service for which they enrolled?” Often times the reasons why aren’t self-evident.

Successful email marketers are keenly aware that email frequency lifts conversions. Simple math proves this. Two or more touchpoints will always provide a greater overall conversion than one. But many email marketers are unclear about how many times it’s appropriate to reach a customer within a given campaign period. They’re concerned with whether or not multiple emails will increase conversions or negatively impact customer relationships. Successful email marketers don’t want to risk pestering their customer base to the point where they’re less receptive to future communications.

Gmail’s new tabbed inbox has given email marketers a lot to think about. Many believe their communications won’t be taken seriously or will be ignored
 completely now that they won’t be featured within a customer’s primary inbox. Email marketers are worried about performance and how being relegated to a secondary inbox could quite possibly mean the death of time-sensitive offers and timely updates. Email marketers are frantically looking for answers.

It might be surprising to learn that 80% of all time on iOS and Android connected devices is spent using a mobile app.¹ After giving this a little thought you’ll realize mobile apps are something we use more often than we think. Mobile apps simplify our lives, make us smarter shoppers, enhance our productivity and even change the way we watch television.

In most endeavors, the difference between success and failure often comes down to the little things. Successful email marketing campaigns are no different. Strong email campaigns rely on trial and error. They count on past performance to point the way for improvements. Successful email marketing campaigns also leverage best practices and insights from campaigns that came before them.