Monday Catch-up: Personalization, Email Newsletters and the Future of Email Marketing

Good Monday morning marketers! Let’s get right back to it with a few useful news items. #### Study sees personalization ‘going mainstream,’ getting results“When it comes to targeted marketing, businesses of all sizes are keying in on personalization,” says [BizReport](http://www.bizreport.com/2016/06/study-personalization-going-mainstream.html), citing a study that found that 85% of brands are using some form of personalization. 67% of the brands in the study are using personalized email, while “56% are attempting personalization via their websites, and 27% are using personalization via mobile websites.” The study also found that 65% of marketers using personalization have seen increased conversion rates and 62% report increased engagement.#### Tips for effective email newsletters“It seems nearly every company, brand, or organization offers some type of email newsletter, whether or not it gets read is another story,” writes Mickie E Kennedy at [Business 2 Community](http://www.business2community.com/email-marketing/5-tips-effective-email-newsletters-01572676#vRCXlMGAs5QifmYd.97). Kennedy advises marketers to give serious consideration to whether or not a newsletter is right for their business: “If you don’t have regular news or updates and you really only plan to promote your products in it, then perhaps not. If, however, your company regularly is churning out new, worthwhile content and your clients like to stay abreast of changes in the industry, then a newsletter might be the way to go.” He goes on to share five suggestions to help “set your newsletter apart from the thousands sent out daily.”#### Looking ahead at the future of email marketing“Email is the oldest form of digital communication and comes packed with an ROI second to none. Despite years of pundits proclaiming that email is dead, it’s very much alive and thriving, thanks to mobile devices that have put the inbox into our pocket,” writes SparkPost’s Len Shneyder on the [Huffington Post](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/10-things-that-will-redefine-the-email-marketing-landscape_us_57572d11e4b0527b29ffe085?platform=hootsuite). Shneyder recently asked nine industry colleagues to “pontificate and wax poetic on the future of email marketing.” The group came up with a “diverse set of predictions, warnings and ruminations that should give everyone sending email today an opportunity to reflect on their digital communications strategy.”#### Working successfully with ITLoren McDonald, writing as the “Email Insider” over at [Media Post](http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/278308/its-its-fault.html?edition=93899), examines the all-important, sometimes contentious, relationship between Marketing and IT. “It has become all too convenient just to blame IT when half of our projects are stalled or broken,” he writes. “Sometimes it results from company culture. Then there are the times neither department understands the needs, priorities and problems of the other.” He offers nine suggestions to help marketers “break up the logjam, stop blaming IT for inaction, and turn them into partners who solve problems and realize opportunities for their company.”