We in the email industry have our own set of generally accepted best practices (GABP), formed by our own mistakes, triumphs and experience based on what works best for senders, ISPs and end recipients. What makes me tear at my graying and thinning hair lately is all the companies who still violate these GABPs. No, they aren’t laws, but they are a bit like teaching your children to say “please” and “thank you” (hold the Barney jokes). They are simply the right thing to do. Read through my initial list of 10 infractions of “GABPs,” and see how your program rates.

The biggest language gap in email marketing is not about global geography, it’s about making a business case to the C-suite that creating great subscriber experiences is something they should invest in. We email marketers have a hard time getting the budget and IT resources we need because we often do not make our case in the language these executives understand.

Dear Email Diva: I need a catchy subject line, something to make sure that prospects open my email. I have tried professional, I have tried friendly, I have tried blunt and to the point, I have tried kooky, but none seems to work. What I am I doing wrong?

On a recent work project, I was tasked with defining the “perfect” loyalty program email experience. After reviewing over 150 awards/loyalty program emails, I can safely say that no one company does it perfectly. Based on my observations, here are some tips to help you design a loyalty program email strategy that will cultivate the relationship and strengthen a profitable alliance.

Recently an Email Experience Council member asked me whether retailers should drive sales online or offline with their email marketing. Having a very subscriber-centric view of the world, I answered that, in general, retailers should not try to force customers into particular channels, that they should try to be channel-agnostic. That said, there are a few reasons to inject some occasional channel bias into your email marketing. So here are some ways to drive traffic to your stores.

According to Gartner’s recent publication “Market Share: Smartphones, Worldwide, 1Q08,” the BlackBerry led U,S. market share with 42% of the market. Only one year after the initial release of the iPhone, Apple climbed to the second slot with 20% of the U.S. smartphone market. As these two juggernauts fight for control of the smartphone market, email has become the primary battleground.

Consumers are being deluged by email — personal, commercial and business — and they’re doing something to manage the flow. We don’t need just to stand out in the inbox, we need to get subscribers to access their “inbound only” accounts. To do this, email marketers, we must dedicate ourselves to providing Value to our subscribers. Let’s stop worrying about this or that minor element to test and think big picture:

There must be thousands of small, local nonprofit organizations that haven’t yet embraced the benefits of email. The primary reason is probably a lack of understanding of the key role email plays in today’s society and how email can be used to build donor relationships and advocacy, and thus increase support for the organization’s mission. The secondary reason is a lack of personnel skilled in the creation and maintenance of email programs. Over the past year I assisted one such agency to enter the world of email. The following summary of the effort involved may help you in working with a local nonprofit of your choosing.

Naturally, the perfect answer to the question is: It depends. But to give a more specific answer, from the subscribers’ perspective, the perfect time to send is just before they would like to view your emails. Here are four ways ways to create a simplified time-of-delivery scheme.

Email is not direct mail. “Duh,” you might be saying if you are an experienced email marketer. But I’ve noticed a continuing increase of marketers with direct mail or other offline backgrounds entering the email world, and who seem to be surprised at the differences.