These days, just about all email programs can render HTML email, and sooo many people have high-speed Internet connections. So we see a lot of marketers ignoring the plain-text field. This is a mistake.

About 20-30% is a normal open rate, but a lot depends on your list, your content type, and how frequently you send your campaigns (and how fatigued your recipients are). Your very first campaign may see a high open rate (like +70%) but things quickly level off with subsequent campaigns. Here are some tips if you’re seeing below average open performance...

At MailChimp, we manage over 65,000 subscriber lists, with over 75 million recipients in them. We’ve seen a sloppy list or two, and have dealt with a delivery problem or two. So we’ve learned a thing or two about how sloppy lists happen, and how to prevent them. Most sloppy lists come from ignorance, not evil. But that doesn’t make it any less stupid. So here are some stupid list management mistakes to avoid...

Be honest. Whenever you get email marketing that you weren't expecting, or that you never even requested, what do you do (after cursing the name of the person who sent it)? You click that "this is spam" button in your email program. Heck, according to some studies, 30% of recipients click "this is spam" for email marketing campaigns, even if they specifically requested it from the sender!