by Courtney Eckerle, Reporter

The transition from one year to another is about reflection, but also about looking ahead to the future. The following nine articles, chosen based on their popularity with readers, showed how content marketing continues as king, but also saw a swift rise in mobile and social media integration.

The 2012 Email Marketing Benchmark Report reflects this interest, with 46% of CMOs reporting mobile as the development that would most affect their email marketing program over this year, and 83% saying social media.

Looking back over the articles published through the MarketingSherpa Email Marketing newsletter in 2012, marketers had increasing access to data that bridged the gap between company and consumer through the integration of personalization into email messages.

Marketers were challenged as screens got smaller and data got bigger, but the ability to segment lists and provide a personal touch played a big part in email campaign successes in 2012.

Check out these trends in the year’s top articles below.

Content continues to reign

Email Marketing: 6 tactics on combining content and email strategies – This how-to offers six tactics on understanding and conquering the nuances of integrating content marketing with email. With a blog, internal resources, and incoming and outgoing emails mixed with a little repurposing, you could be well on your way to a savvy combination of the two.

Email Marketing How-to: 5 steps to improve your email newsletter – Two email marketing experts from ExactTarget and Sliverpop cover the power shift from marketer to consumer, and how to provide value in email content through personalization, designing for mobile and testing consumers. Find specific examples from Scott’s Miracle-Gro and King Arthur Flour.

Integration of mobile and social media

Mobile Email Marketing: 53% higher clickthrough rate for mobile-optimized newsletter – The conversion process of Medscape, a health information website, to mobile with its e-newsletter is covered in this case study. This change, along with a few key design optimizations, increased clickthrough rates by 53% for its newsletter.

Mobile Email Marketing: iPhone-targeted landing pages boost conversion rate 40% for Ritz-Carlton Destination Club – Email marketers at Marriott Vacations Worldwide tested a simple mobile landing page for iPhone users that saw conversion rates jump from 5% to 7%. In this case study, see how these marketers adapted to shrinking screens without shrinking their available budget.

Social Email Marketing: 256% higher clickthrough rate on tweaked Pinterest promo for nonprofit – Many companies were toying with email and social media integration, including VolunteerSpot, who used Pinterest for the greater good, while raising its clickthrough rate in the process. By using its email newsletter, VolunteerSpot was able to establish and promote its presence on Pinterest in a three-email series.

Personalization and segmenting pick up speed

Email Marketing: 17.36% higher average clickthrough rate in 7 personalized subject line tests – Although they weren’t sure it would wow their subscribers, marketers at AWeber tested out personalizing their emails to include the subscriber’s name and, with significant testing, saw a 17.36% lift in clickthrough.

Email Marketing: 208% higher conversion rate for targeted emails over batch-and-blast – Marketers at Artbeads.com discovered that sending general emails to their entire list was eroding their results, and by selecting a high-value segment to send a targeted offer, saw conversion rates jump more than 200%. This case study covers their journey into targeted email marketing by covering the process of choosing their segment and crafting a strong offer.

Email Segmentation: Targeted program reduces advertising costs 73%, leads to 3,000% ROI – A healthcare company grew its list to 64,000 entries over four years, and drove up its ROI to 3,000% by segmenting its list. This case study covers the criteria and tracked prospect behavior used to segment, as well as its targeted email efforts.

Email Summit 2012

Email Summit 2012: Top 5 takeaways from the industry’s largest research-based event – Taken directly from the presentations from Email Summit2012, this article covers the top event takeaways. Those who were able to attend tweeted this article, adding their own favorite tactics and ideas. Many attendees commented on the “micro-yes” concept, as well as actionable tactics on deliverability, social login and list hygiene.

Related Resources

Subscribe to the MarketingSherpa Email Marketing newsletter – Case studies and how-to articles

Attend Email Summit 2013 in Las Vegas from February 19-22

Download the 2012 MarketingSherpa Email Marketing Benchmark Report

Email Marketing: The 3 most successful tactics of 2011 (with case studies)

Email Newsletters: Social media integration yields 135% more traffic for New York Public Library

Mobile Email Marketing: 50% more app downloads from device-targeted ads