The Rebel's Guide to Email Marketing: Grow Your List, Break the Rules, and Win (Que Biz-Tech) [Paperback]

DJ Waldow (Author), Jason Falls (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 25, 2012 | Series: Que Biz-Tech

A No-Nonsense, Take-No-Prisoners Plan for Earning Positive Return on Your Email Marketing!

“They” say email is dead. Baloney! 94% of Americans use email. Passionate social networkers use email more, not less. Mobile email is huge. Email offers marketers more opportunities than ever...opportunities to guide customers from consideration and trial to repeat purchase, loyalty, even advocacy! But email has changed. Email users have changed. To get breakthrough results, you must break the rules! Whether you’re B2B or B2C, Fortune 500 or startup, this is a complete no-nonsense plan for transforming your email marketing. Discover radically better ways to handle every facet of your campaign: lists, From names, Subject lines, calls to action, social network integration...everything!

Learn how to

• Discover which email marketing “rules” are obsolete--and when to break the rest
• Optimize every component of your message and campaign
• Drive list growth that translates directly into the top line
• Encourage opt-in by systematically simplifying signup
• Bring real humor and creativity back into your email
• Write a great main call to action--and great secondary and tertiary calls, too
• Take full advantage of tools ranging from QR codes to texting to grow your email list
• Make better technical decisions about prechecked opt-in boxes and other attributes
• Know when to deliberately introduce “imperfections” into your emails
• Use email marketing and social media to power each other
• Prepare for the short- and long-term futures of email marketing

Editorial Reviews

Review

“After reading this book, the debate over email marketing being dead is without a doubt over. DJ and Jason talk about email coming alive and letting it work for your organization in many ways that you have heard don’t work. Whether you are newbie or a seasoned veteran, this book will get you screaming at the top of your lungs that EMAIL IS THRIVING!”
--Andrew Kordek, cofounder and chief strategist of Trendline Interactive, a strategic email marketing agency

“Social media gets more attention, but email is still the spine of effective digital marketing. In this practical book that you’ll refer to constantly, Waldow and Falls shed much-needed light on how to build, operate, and optimize a knock-out email program. It’s a useful book, perfectly executed.”
--Jay Baer, coauthor of The NOW Revolution: 7 Shifts to Make Your Business Faster, Smarter, and More Social

“I would take 1,000 opt-in email addresses above 1,000 followers or Likes any day of the week. This from one of the biggest social media fans alive. Email is not dead; it’s stronger than ever for the ones who use it right. DJ and Jason are the guys to show you how with this masterpiece.”
--Scott Stratten, best-selling author of UnMarketing

“At a time when all the buzz is about social, DJ and Jason’s fun, insightful, and down-to-earth style will give any marketer a renewed excitement for email.”
--Halley Silver, director of online services, The King Arthur Flour Co.

“Non-practitioner pundits have been declaring email marketing dead for years. They’re still wrong. Email marketing remains the best way to get people to take action, so read this book if you want your business to grow.”
--Brian Clark, CEO of Copyblogger Media

“You might call email the glue that holds so much of business marketing efforts together. You might call it the backbone, or the connective tissue, or the linchpin. But whatever you call it, you need it. And this is the book that shows you not just why you need it, but how to use it to grow your business.

“Rebel’s Guide is the book I’ve been waiting for, because this is the book that talks (in real, relevant, updated terms) about how email is that critical thing businesses need to market in a digital age.”
--Ann Handley, chief content officer of MarketingProfs and coauthor of Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business (Wiley, updated 2012)

About the Author

DJ Waldow is an email marketing consultant, writer, blogger, speaker, and (now) author. He is the founder and CEO of Waldow Social, a company that helps clients take email marketing to the next level. DJ has spent nearly 7 years in the email, social, and community-building world, advising clients on how to optimize their email marketing campaigns and--on occasion--break some of the “best practice” rules. DJ can be found on most social networks under the handle “djwaldow” or by searching “DJ Waldow.”

Jason Falls is an author, speaker, and CEO, the latter of Social Media Explorer, a digital marketing agency and information products company. From client strategies to industry research reports to conference-style events, Falls spearheads efforts to bridge the gap between professional communicators and business owners and the strategic use of digital marketing and technology. An award-winning social media strategist and widely read industry pundit, Falls has been noted as a top influencer in the social technology and marketing space by Forbes, Entrepreneur, Advertising Age, and others. He is the coauthor of two books, this one and No Bullshit Social Media: The All-Business, No-Hype Guide to Social Media Marketing (Que 2011).

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Que Publishing; 1 edition (August 25, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0789749696
• ISBN-13: 978-0789749697
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 0.6 x 8.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #124,181 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Actionable, Encouraging and all-around AWESOME! August 30, 2012

By Stephan J Hovnanian

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

The Rebel's Guide delivered original, actionable ideas that I had heard about but hadn't fully understood. The style and organization was very example-heavy, which makes it easier to relate to the lessons (and also to see where you might be able to implement the same strategy yourself). DJ and Jason also made sure to continually circle back to earlier topics (and on a Kindle, that's helpful, because it isn't easy to flip back a few chapters). The reinforcement made the ideas stick, and some case studies became "characters" within the book, so once they re-introduced someone, you already had a background on previous success and were excited to see what happened next. That was probably my favorite part of this book, and unique to other marketing books I've read.

Another great aspect of The Rebel's Guide is that it's easy enough for a novice to understand, yet still has plenty of advice for seasoned pro's who are looking to do things a little differently...for me, as I was reading The Rebel's Guide my head was spinning with new ideas for 3 of my own clients in various stages of list growth, segmentation and design.

Well done, DJ and Jason, thank you for being such valuable members to the email marketing community!!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Why Email Marketing Needs a Rebel's Guide September 27, 2012

By Nick Westergaard

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I'm not big on full-throated endorsements but if your business has anything to do with email marketing (if it doesn't that's another issue altogether) there's something in The Rebel's Guide to Email Marketing for you. Whether you're a marketing VP or coordinator, a copywriter or designer, you'll find nuggets of intel that will leave your copy of the book broken-spined and dog-eared.

I also have to give Waldow and Falls props for how they close the book as well. First, they poll four venerable email experts on the future of the channel. Next, taking Nike's advice to "Just Do It" a step further, Rebel's Guide leaves you with an actionable four-step list (with due dates!) for you to kickstart your email program.

Like a true manual, The Rebel's Guide will serve as a continuing resource not simply by telling you what you should and shouldn't do with your email marketing campaigns. Rather it provides the frameworks you can make your own and reminds you that only by testing with your audience will you know for certain. Take to heart the book's golden rule -- best practices are practices tht work best for your subscribers. This is valuable advice for email marketing and beyond.

How are you using email in your marketing mix? If you need to shake things up, look no further than The Rebel's Guide to Email Marketing.

You can read my full review here: [...]

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars A solid introduction to email marketing, despite a misleading title January 16, 2013

By IRG VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

Subhead: Not the book I thought it would be, but it still has merit for the right audience.

As someone who has been involved in various aspects of email marketing for both corporate and small-business clients for over a decade, there's nothing here that I don't already have experience with (and some of my own strong opinions about from ongoing and evolving work). Like others, the title had me thinking that this would be a book with some really innovative and rule-breaking ideas about e-mail marketing in 2013. Alas, this is not the case.

It would, however, serve as a good primer for those who know next to nothing about email marketing and need to get a quick overview and jumpstart.

This isn't the definitive book/guide on email marketing, but it does touch heavily on something that I believe is the cornerstone of successful marketing: The List. Some general intro books on the subject focus more heavily on design and content. But as anyone who has ever been charged with using email effectively as part of a marketing campaign knows, you live or die first and foremost by The List (AKA, your target audience). You can have fabulous, relevant content and a well-designed and inviting format and still fail miserably if your emails are not going to folks who have been "qualified" and tested.

It was good to see that the authors gave a context for some of their opinions and also gave the pros/cons (advantages/disadvantages) of elements such as single- and double opt-ins. More importantly, in the discussion of Best Practices, although they seem to be saying many no longer apply, what they're really saying is that the practices are relative to your business, industry and audience.

On the plus side, it presents the material in a way that gets you to think and question your decisions on how you want to create and grow your list. And it explores key elements and how they affect your ability to successfully use email as a 21st-century marketing.

The book is well-organized and easy to read and includes Endnotes that are useful for those who want to follow up on various topics.

To their credit, the authors' focus is primarily on how to appeal to the subscriber and how various choices may impact them. Given how some companies seem to be almost exclusively focused on telling their "stories" or selling, this is an important perspective.