Word to the Wise

We make email better.

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We make email better.

Word to the Wise helps email marketers create more effective email messages, programs and infrastructures. We advise you how to skillfully navigate the constant business, technology, and policy challenges so your messages reach your customers.

We can help you with your email strategy, deliverability challenges and many other email issues.

Latest stories

Don't just follow the HOWTO

By laura
In Best Practices
2 Min read
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There are so many moving parts to ensure good email deliverability. Email marketers need to know marketing, they need to know email and they need to know design. The technical bits of email can be a challenge to learn, and many folks who write tutorials and How-Tos write them for a different audience than marketers. One of the things I’m trying to do is demystify the technical end of email...

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Ask Laura: Confused about CAN SPAM

By laura
In Legal
4 Min read
A

Dear Laura,  I read your blog post about CAN SPAM earlier this week, and there’s one thing that confuses me. You never mention that harvesting addresses is a violation. I’ve seen many other people, including lawyers, assert that harvesting addresses is a violation of CAN SPAM. Why did you leave that out? Signed, Hopeful maker of musubi Dear Hopeful, The idea that harvesting is, in and...

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Phone call of the week

By laura
In Industry
2 Min read
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I received a message on our 800 number. “This is Mark from a-website.example. Your customers are complaining to me that they are not getting my mail. And you’re blocking mail from me. Explain this to me!”     I called him back and left a message: “I think you’re confused and I probably can’t help you.” A few minutes later, Mark returns my call. L: Hi, this is laura. M: Who are you...

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Changes coming to Verizon email

By laura
In Industry
2 Min read
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Last year Verizon bought AOL. As part of that merger some @verizon.net email is being migrated to the AOL backend. FAQs published by Verizon say this change is only affecting users in FL, TX and CA. Users will still have @verizon.net addresses but the backend and filtering will be managed by AOL. This shouldn’t have a huge impact on commercial senders. However, one thing I did notice while...

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April 2016: The Month in Email

By laura
In Industry
3 Min read
A

We are finishing up another busy month at WttW. April was a little nutty with network glitches, server crashes, cat woes, and other disruptions, but hopefully that’s all behind us as we head into May. I’ll be very busy in May as well, speaking at Salesforce Connections in Atlanta and the Email Innovation Summit in Las Vegas. Please come say hello if you’re attending either of these great events...

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Pete and Repeat

By laura
In Industry
1 Min read
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Pete and Repeat were on a boat. Pete fell out, who was left?

I was searching the blog for some resources today and these were the first two posts that showed up on the search results. I often feel like I’m repeating myself, but sometimes I am.
 

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Trust the list broker

By laura
In Industry
2 Min read
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Over the years I’ve worked with companies who admit to me that they’ve purchased data at one point or another. Let’s face it, as bad a practice as it is, people and companies still think they can succeed in email marketing with purchased lists. As part of the cleanup process, I start to ask questions about the list. Who did you buy it from? How were the addressees collected? Are...

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Let's talk CAN SPAM

By laura
In Legal
4 Min read
L

Earlier this week I posted about the increased amount of B2B spam I’m receiving. One message is not a huge deal and I just delete and move on. But many folks are using marketing automation to send a series of emails. These emails often violate CAN SPAM in one way or another. This has been the law for 13 years now, I find it difficult to believe marketers are still unaware of what it says...

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