Email Marketing Books: The 7 Best Books for Digital Marketers on Email Marketing

Book # 1. E-Mail Marketing For Dummies – John Arnold

When it comes to learning from A to Z, the Dummies series of books can be the ultimate guide that covers everything about a particular subject. Email Marketing for Dummies, written by John Arnold is one of these books. This is a thick book that covers everything from the head to the toe about email marketing. Regardless of whether you are an expert or a total newbie, there is something for you to learn here.

Email marketing represents an opportunity to experience both the thrill of increased customer loyalty and steady repeat business as well as the agony of bounced emails, unsubscribe requests, and spam complaints. No matter if you are looking for ways to find thrill or agony in your email marketing strategy, this book will show you the ability to effectively deliver valuable and purposeful emails to your subscribers who need your information.

Email Marketing for Dummies consists of six major parts. The first part explains the basic of email marketing and how you can add email marketing as part of your business strategy to boost sales and to reach out more clients for repeated business and strengthen communication. John shares a couple of useful tips how you can become a trusted sender so that people who receive your email will know who you are, want to open your email and read what you want to tell them.

The second part of the book is dedicated to mapping out an email marketing strategy. You will discover how to develop an objective, which is one of the most important aspects of email marketing and how to build a quality email list. Furthermore, John goes on to explain some of the content that you can send to your subscribers and how to make the content valuable to them.

The third section of this book is about designing an effective marketing using email. Meaning to say, you get to learn how to design your email such as the best template, what type of texts to use, and whether should you include an image in your email. You will also learn how to create a subject line that will attract your subscribers and entice them to open and read your email.

And then John explains how you can become an expert in building your own email marketing campaign. He shares with readers how to combine social media with email marketing to boost more interaction and make your subscribers more responsive, plus, he also shows you how to automate your email campaign and how to deliver your emails using mobile devices as well.

In the fifth section, John writes about the tracking of your email campaign and how you can utilize the data to build a better email marketing campaign. You will learn how to capitalize on clicks and other responses to boost your delivery, email open rate, and also CTR.

And in the final section, the author shares with the readers the top ten worst email content blunders and what are the critical mistakes not to make. This is an interesting topic because you will find many examples of low performing emails such as emails with boring subject lines, distracting images, unfamiliar from address, cluttered layout, and more. And then John dedicates another chapter to ten email marketing resources where you can find all sorts of resources you need as an email marketer.

Book # 2. The New Inbox – Simms Jenkins

Simms Jenkins is the author of The New Inbox. He is also the founder and CEO of BrightWave, a digital agency that focuses on email marketing. Jenkins is considered one of the leading email marketing experts and his firm has won many awarded including clients such as Aflac, Porsche, Weather.com, Cox Business, and more. He has been featured in many mainstream media such as Fortune Magazine, Wall Street Journal, and Bloomberg TV.

In his book, The New Inbox, Jenkins shares with readers the keys to elevating your email program in a dynamic new digital world. He tells you why mobile is the biggest game changers to hit email marketing, how email marketing fits in a social networking crazed world, and also shares real examples and advice on how you can grow your list, write and send better emails, how to track and drive more sales, and much, much more.

This book consists of eight chapters and Jenkins focuses email marketing on social media and mobile devices more. He writes, “Email is the hub of all digital messaging. It’s not the end-all-be-all, but email is the glue that keeps marketing channels together.” Jenkins believes that email is still one of the most important channels of digital communication even though social media has also emerged as a popular way of communication. People still read emails and they regard emails as more important than social media. After all, social media is a platform for friends and less serious matter, while email is the real business.

And when it comes to mobile devices, Jenkins states that smartphone users are more likely to read emails than to make calls. And it takes the reliance on mobile even further by highlighting that people read more emails on a mobile browser than any other browser. Plus, he also shares some statistics of consumers deleting emails or unsubscribing from emails based on the mobile messaging experience. This means that how you “present” your email content to your subscribers on mobile devices really matters.

In the book, Jenkins shares five key considerations in building your email marketing campaign for the mobile users. He says that the first key to consider is the subject line. This is because the subject line you use will set the tone for the entire message you are going to deliver to your subscribers. The second key according to Jenkins is that your primary call-to-action should not be a link, but a button.

And third, your message should deliver some form of value to your subscribers. Jenkins believes that people spend the time to read your emails, and thus, you must craft your emails in such a way that they can benefit from what you have to say. And fourth, you should talk to your audience as if you know something about them so that they can relate. And then finally, you must keep testing, learning, retest, and then learn again.

Besides that, Jenkins also dedicates an entire chapter on ideal ways to leverage email and social media to drive engagement with your email lists. Not only that, he also offers some insightful tips on how to get your emails read by focusing on a few key factors such as the subject lines, personalization, and the length of your email campaigns.

Book # 3. The Copywriter’s Handbook – Robert W. Bly

While copywriting is not really a subject that falls under email marketing, but it is a huge and important part of emails. Whenever you write or craft your emails to send to your subscribers, you are creating emails to sell, to inform, to build trust, and to engage with your subscribers, and this is why copywriting is important in email marketing. The Copywriter’s Handbook, written by Robert Bly is considered one of the modern classics that all internet marketers should read.

This is a huge book from Robert and the chapters are dedicated to each aspect of marketing, including writing to get attention, writing to communicate, writing to sell, writing for brochures, catalogs, and other sales materials, writing for the web, and of course, writing for email marketing. In fact, this book does not only cover tips about copywriting, Robert also shares his ideas on how you can get a job as a copywriter, plus how to hire and work with copywriters. Overall, this book can be a complete guide for copywriting and everything you need to know about the subject.

According to Robert, when you craft your emails, you must follow the “4 U’s” copywriting formula to improve your email performance. The first “U” refers to urgency. You must create a sense of urgency for your audiences such as a limited time offer or a discount to entice them to act. The second “U” refers to unique. Your headline must be unique so that your readers will find it new, fresh and interesting and they will want to read the email that you sent them. The third “U” is ultra-specific. Your email copy must have a specific purpose and the message must be written with your purpose in mind to direct your audience into taking action. And the final “U” is useful. Robert says that your subject lines must be strong to excite your subscribers by offering them a useful benefit.

The Copywriter’s Handbook also covers the psychological points such as writing your emails by putting your readers first. Robert says that you must always ask yourself whether your readers understand what you have written. Furthermore, Robert writes that a good email copy is a carefully organized email with selling points. He writes, “The headline states the main selling proposition, and the first few paragraphs expand on it. Secondary points are covered later in the body copy. If this copy is lengthy, each secondary point may get a separate heading or number.”

This book has been revised and updated by Robert to include the all-new essential information for mastering copywriting in the internet era. If you are looking to boost your sales and make your email marketing campaign performs better, The Copywriter’s Handbook is the right book for you.

Book # 4. Email Persuasion – Ian Brodie

Ian Brodie is a marketing expert who has helped countless people including professionals, coaches, and consultants to attract and win more clients. His work has been featured in BBC World Service, Marketing Profs, Salesforce, BusinessWeek, and more. Ian is also the famous author of his book, Email Persuasion.

The book, Email Persuasion is as per the title suggests, a step-by-step guide to attract, persuade, and win more clients and sales with email marketing. Ian reveals plenty of techniques and strategies you can use right away to connect with your potential clients, build trust, grow the relationship between you and your prospects, and transform them into a long-term customer through the power of emails.

This book has eleven chapters and all the chapters are sequenced in such a way to helping you build a list, to getting prospects, creating the trust, and turning subscribers into sales. Ian begins by giving a powerful introduction as to why email is the world’s most powerful marketing tool. And in the first chapter, he explains the foundation of an effective email marketing campaign. And then he goes on to share tips and advice how you can quickly build a valuable list of email subscribers.

And in the third chapter, he shows readers some effective strategies how to get your email opened and read. This is because if the email you send is not open or read by your subscribers, it is as good as no marketing effort. And Ian also writes about how to write emails that engage with your subscribers and persuade them to take action according to your desire. He also shares the techniques he uses to turning subscribers into paying clients and how to automate your email marketing campaign using an “autoresponder”.

After that, Ian continues to dive deeper into email marketing by sharing how you can use list segmentation to get the right message to the right subscribers. He includes tips and tactics for creating the influence so that your audience will treat you as an expert and listen to you. Finally, Ian shows a simple dashboard on how to measure the effectiveness of your email marketing campaign and dedicates a chapter for tools and technology you can use to support your email marketing effort.

Email Persuasion is not just a book about the theory of building and growing a responsive email list, but it is also a book where Ian has included templates, real-life examples, and clear steps for you to implement in your own email marketing system to quickly get results.

Book # 5. Email Marketing Rules – Chad White

Chad S. White was a former journalist who has been featured in over 100 publications including The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and Adweek. Chad has written more than 3,000 posts and articles about email marketing and served as a lead email marketing researcher at Salesforce, ExactTarget, and Responsys. He is also the famous author of Email Marketing Rules, a big book consists of checklists, frameworks, and 150 best practices for business success.

Chad has divided this book into three major parts. The first part is about the rules of email marketing. What you are going to discover here is the must-follow best practices that are guaranteed to perform. Chad laid down the rules that separate great marketers from good marketers, what great marketers do, their email metrics, the subject lines they used, their email designs, landing pages and more. A huge portion of this book has been dedicated to this part because it is one of the most important aspects of improving your email performance.

And in the second part, Chad discloses the frameworks of a successful email marketing strategy. And this is where you will learn subjects such as how to grow your list, inbox placement, email audience funnel, subscriber lifecycle, email frequency, cross-channel synergies, email attribution, and much more. For instance, Chad explains how your emails are delivered by understanding the factors that cause inbox providers to block senders and how to build a high-performance list by identifying valuable subscriber acquisition sources, using appropriate permission practices and managing the inactive subscribers wisely.

Email marketing is a huge topic and it involves a lot of complexity to manage, especially if you are handling a huge database of email lists. Email Marketing Rules also help to set the right goals by understanding deep metrics and properly interpreting your email marketing campaign, channel and also subscriber behaviors.

In the final part of the book, Chad discusses the future of email marketing and 11 ways how it will change in the decade ahead. Email is still one of the most important components of online communication. Although social media like Facebook has grabbed a huge share of online communication, people still prefer to use email as their primary way of “serious” communication, especially in business and work-related issue. And in this chapter, Chad predicts and shows the readers a glimpse of the future of how email marketing will evolve so that you can take advantage and improve accordingly.

Email Marketing Rules is not just a book that is fun to read, it is also a practical book with a lot of actionable ideas, figures, images, and also checklists that you can use and apply as part of your email marketing strategy immediately.

Book # 6. The Rebel’s Guide to Email Marketing – DJ Waldow and Jason Falls

Some people may think that email is already dead due to the rise of social media and other ways of digital communication such as Whatsapp, Facebook Chat, and other social media platforms that allow the chat feature. This is not true at all, in fact, over 94% of American uses emails and it is still one of the most important online communication channels of all.

The Rebel’s Guide to Email Marketing is a book that has been written for anyone who wants to be excellent at email marketing. This book is written by DJ Waldow, an email marketing expert, and together with Jason Falls, a successful internet entrepreneur. Overall, this book has been divided into five major parts covering almost everything you need to know in order to grow your email list and improve the performance of your emailing strategy.

The first part is about growing your list. The authors give you an overview of creating the fundamental of effective list building. You will discover a lot of times on the little details such as setting your subscriber’s expectation right and building a strong relationship with your leads.

The second part is about the anatomy of an email. This section is where the authors share a lot of useful and practical tips that you can implement into your email marketing campaign to boost more sales and engagement with your leads. The book also discloses email examples from successful companies like Zappos, HARO, and MarketingProfs. According to Waldow and Jason, the only way for you to know what works for your email marketing campaign is by testing. They state that most marketers never do testing and this will set as a reminder to make sure that your marketing effort will improve.

And the third section is about breaking the rules. As the book states, “Best practices are practices that are best for your subscribers.” Everyone knows the rules such as a subject line with all capital words is bad, use double opt-in only, and don’t use pop-up forms, etc. However, technology and the email marketing have evolved since years ago, and some of these rules may not apply anymore. This is where the authors dare you to break the rules and test out and then check the results for yourself.

The fourth section is about combining email marketing, where the book refers to as Batman, and social media, Robin together. We all know that social media has grown so big that it has become an important part of marketing for many successful businesses, but we cannot neglect the importance of email marketing too. Therefore, Waldow and Jason explain how these two, Batman and Robin can tag along and bring your business to a higher level.

And in the final chapter, the authors share their thoughts about the future of email marketing what is coming next. The Rebel’s Guide to Email Marketing is a true manual that can serve as a continuing resource that provides the frameworks you can use. The information from the book can also serve as a reminder to keep testing with your audience because every market is different and of course, to not be afraid to break the rules.

Book # 7. Email Marketing Demystified – Matthew Paulson

Matthew Paulson is the author of Email Marketing Demystified and he is also a serial entrepreneur running MarketBeat.com that publishes newsletters to over 250,000 investors daily. Matthew is also a partner for USGolfTV, a digital publishing company that produces television shows for the golf industry. His book, Email Marketing Demystified is a step-by-step guide for any internet marketer who wants to grow and implement email marketing in their business.

For instance, this book consists of nine chapters with guidelines and almost every chapter is supported by a real-life case study so that readers can understand the concept and implement the instruction better. In the first chapter, Matthew talks about selecting an email service provider, which may sound like a boring subject, but it is extremely important because if you use a wrong email service provider, it can create a lot of headache to you and your business in the future.

And then Matthew goes on to explain and show you how to build your mailing list using your website. Plus, he also shares fourteen ways how you can grow your email list outside your website. And in chapter four, he shares his opinion when is the best time to send email to your list of subscribers, how you can do it and what to include in the email. Besides that, he also explains tips and tricks in writing emails that inspire and engage subscribers in taking action. He then uses his own website, USGolfTV as the case study to explain the detail further.

Most people just want to understand how they can make money from their email list, and this is exactly what you will discover in chapter six of this book. Matthew shows you the six ways you can profit from your email list and learn to identify the best one that may fit your business the most. And in chapter seven, Matthew writes about email delivery and list management. This is where you get to learn how to manage your list on a day-to-day basis and what you should do each day to grow your list and engage with your subscribers.

In the final chapter, Matthew discusses the power of outbound email marketing, which means actively reach out to people who are non-subscribers directly through email. This is an interesting topic where most internet marketers do not talk much about. And Matthew shares with you some of the tips and techniques he uses in one of his websites, GoGo Photo Contest. Overall, Email Marketing Demystified is an amazing book with plenty of useful and practical information that you can implement in your business. What is more powerful about this book is that the author, Matthew Paulson includes case studies and examples of how successful companies have used the techniques he shares in the book.