If you’re reading this, you’re probably not a graphic designer. But you may know good design when you see it … or you may not. Good design isn’t blatantly noticeable. Good design conveys the information effectively, efficiently, and subtly. Good design is easy to look at. But why is it easy to look at? What makes a design ‘good’? Since this is just a blog post and not four years in Graphic Design program at a reputable university, I’ll just break down the seven basics of making your Powerpoints look good.

For many marketers, their conversations with I.T. are mostly limited to times when they have a problem or need something, and they’re hoping I.T. has a solution. That can lead to a largely transactional relationship, where the two are separate teams that only come together when they have no choice, and only for as long as necessary.

That can lead to a lack of understanding — on both sides — of the crucial role the other team plays with respect to the success of the business, and to growing mistrust. The Marketing team thinks I.T. is being too iron-fisted about security and standing in the way of them drumming up new business. At the same time, I.T. thinks Marketing has no appreciation for the risks associated with data exposure, and that it’s I.T.’s responsibility to be the guardians.

No matter how long you’ve been in the industry, successful email marketers know there’s always something new to learn. The evolving nature of email is part of what keeps #emailgeeks coming back, keeping up with new technology and trying to use it to deliver the sorts of messages that excite your subscribers.

Because it’s always changing, sharing knowledge and hearing from others is essential if you want to keep up with where the industry is headed. That’s a big part of what we want to help with, spreading our experience and helping others be better at what they do.

As marketing technology improves and evolves, it can be challenging for today’s marketer to keep up with all the new tools, and understand which ones best fit their needs. Balancing the level of need with concerns about budget, competitiveness, implementation time is never easy work, and it can even lead to paralysis where a team just treads water with the martech it has because sticking with a mediocre or worse status quo is less daunting a challenge than doing the work necessary to identify and implement the right solution for the future.

One common perception of email messaging is that it mostly consists of marketing campaigns — sending personalized emails to a large group of people at once, and sending a consistent message. However, in reality, the majority of all email sent by brands consists of transactional messages, or messages sent in response to a customer interaction with a company. Although there are many types of transactional emails, a few examples include:

• Password Resets
• Payment Reminders
• Purchase Receipts

Among many others. And it’s no surprise that these messages make up the majority — open rates for these messages are over twice as high, and these emails are clicked six times more than typical marketing messages.