Marketers are now using advanced analytic to spend less and get better results. On average, marketers use four to seven operational systems to interact with customers in areas like social media, mobile, email, display, budgeting/spend planning and campaign planning. The first stage of marketing maturity is getting your data in one place. Next, you begin to develop segments to understand the profile of new customers and their preferred engagement channels. In stage three, then focus on marketing attribution. Then marketers understand what's happened in the past and what's likely to happen in the future. It offers marketers leading indicators of the base of customers, by segment, is about to do next. These answers change the game in retail by seeing customer data light up. Read more at: 

Email still remains one of the best communication methods for buyers and consumers. Marketers should use the benefits of email marketing given the ease with which emails are delivered in the inbox. Certain variables which should be considered before sending an email, like send times to subject lines. The following are the six essential steps foe email creation:

1. Segment Your Audience: The marketer should have a clear idea about the target audience before deciding on a send time and the content of the email.

2. Create Your Content: The content of the email should depend on the interest and need of the target customer.A compelling subject line  and call to action is must.

3. Build Your Email: After creating the content the email template should be created. Images and call to action buttons to break up text should be included if possible.

4. Conduct Deliverability Tests: It’s important to conduct an email deliverability test to avoid the possibility of the email not getting delivered to the customers inbox.

5. Choose Your Send Time: Send times are not fixed, and they often  varies from one customer to another. As a general rule of thumb, emails should be sent during business hours in the morning or in the early afternoon, right after lunch.

6. Track and Analyze: Open rates, click-through rates, and email bounces should be tracked to see what content is resonating with the audience, which subject lines work best, and which areas could use improvement.

To know more, go to: http://www.exacttarget.com/blog/email-campaign