By Amanda Jurgens, Account Coordinator

In today’s digital world, consumers are flooded with marketing emails.  How do marketers create email campaigns that stand out and avoid the dreaded “unsubscribe?”

Hours of design, copy and proofing go into sending a marketing email. But, if emails do not solicit a response, why open them? Even marketers are guilty of the mass inbox delete. Despite this, we still analyze open and click-through rates and wonder what went wrong.

Customers are inundated with emails. Nearly everything you buy online or in a store opts you into email marketing campaigns. Often, consumers end up on a list they were never interested in and certainly don’t care to receive nearly constant communication. In a study by ExactTarget, researchers found that 9 out of 10 subscribers later opt-out of email communication, citing that mailings are too frequent, contain repetitive content or are irrelevant because the consumer didn’t realize they were opting in to begin with.

So, as a marketer, how do you convince someone who has already expressed interest in your communications (whether intentionally or not) to take the next step and actually open the email? The answer seems all too obvious: by creating emails that your customers want to read.

Craft emails containing information that makes the reader’s job easier. It is as simple as that. Create emails that offer a reward, emails that make information easier to locate, or emails that offer some tangible value to your particular audience.

We’re taking you to the Online Marketing Summit with us. Sort of.

From February 23-24, 90octane Account Manager Kelly Hall heads to OMS San Diego. OMS brings together hundreds of marketers for educational sessions on search marketing, social media, email, demand generation, analytics and more. No exhibit booths. No sales pitches. Just the opportunity to glean information that applies directly to today’s conversion-driven marketing programs.

What’s better? You don’t need to register. Kelly is going for you! Kelly will bring the knowledge she gains back to 90octane, and in turn, we’ll share our learnings with you. We’ll also think about what smart marketing trends and up-to-the-minute innovations could affect your programs.

So, you’re “invited.” To clarify, you’re invited to help us steer our OMS program selections. What are the marketing trends you want to learn more about? Where do you think your company’s marketing programs have the opportunity to grow?

Take a look at the detailed programming schedules for each day of OMS (linked below), and let us know what you’re interested in learning about. Leave a comment at the bottom of this post with your thoughts. (And feel free to post your name as ‘Anonymous.’)

Day 1
Day 2

We’ll follow up with you after the event. Also, be sure to follow Kelly on Twitter as she sets her OMS schedule, attends the sessions and reports back with gained wisdom.

Posted by: Mackenzie Ross, Marketing Coordinator

There is no clear best practice, or set-in-stone rule, as to when to send an email broadcast. That’s because it all depends on your specific audience. Every audience’s email-checking habits are different. For example, a B2B audience might check mail throughout the day while stay-at-home moms might only check email at night. There are, however, different steps you can take to zero in on your audience’s preferred send time.

Get Started: Check your site analytics and note the busiest times. You can use this information to tell when your customers are their most active or are more engaged at their computers. This may be easier to nail down for a business audience, given that you know the work day’s approximate start time, lunch hour and end time.

Posted by: Megan Amick, Marketing Coordinator

Email is a great tactic for qualified lead generation and for delivering traffic to your website because these visitors have already expressed interest in your offering.  So, it is important to track emails to see which tactics within your emails are the most effective.  The best way to track your email campaigns is to create tags within each email and use Google Analytics to provide measurable statistics. Tags are created by inserting additional traceable information into your email marketing campaign links. Using the Google Analytics URL Builder you can create these tags to track email campaign information.

Posted by: Christy Roth, Project Manager

Most marketers are in the same spot: do more with less money. As you’re facing this challenge, here are three things that you can do to improve the efficiency and results of your lead generation program:

#1 – Stay Visible Even in a Tough Economy
Through these tough times it is more important than ever to stay visible to prospects whether or not your competitors are doing the same. There are many cost-effective and even free opportunities to help us accomplish this. Use social media and social networking sites to your advantage. Even though it may be out of your comfort zone, consider being present on tools such as Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs, and more. In addition, if you are planning online media buys for 2009, work to negotiate tactics that include freebies such as e-newsletters and ad units. All of these things help keep you in front of potential leads.