Note: It was just over a year ago that Vocus (now Cision) published the list referenced below. Even if you missed it then it’s not too late to check out who made it and start following them — as well as the 3 people listed below who were omitted. This article was first published as one of my ClickZ columns back in July 2014. Enjoy!
My last column on industry organizations every email marketer should join was very popular, so I thought I would follow it up with some of the industry thought leaders every email marketer should be following on Twitter.
Actually, Vocus beat me to the punch with their list of “The World’s Top 50 Email Marketing Influencers” that they published last week. I am so honored to be included on the list – and while I’d like to write about everyone on it, I have limited space so I decided to feature three of my personal favorites from the list as well as three other great minds that also deserve to be there (so hard to pick just 50!).
From the Vocus (now Cision) List:
Dennis Dayman (@ddayman)
Dennis Dayman won the Email Experience Council’s (EEC) 2014 Email Marketer Thought Leader of the Year Award. He recently joined Return Path as chief privacy and security officer. While online privacy and security can both can be rather technical topics, Dennis has a great way of relaying the information in layman’s terms. These are also topics that are important to the work I do, but they aren’t things I actively have a hand in every day, so it’s great to know that I can keep up-to-date by following Dennis. He’s not only active with industry organizations, but he’s also often at the table when the FTC and other government entities are discussing these issues. Follow him on Twitter and on Privacology, the blog he co-founded.
Justine Jordan (@meladorri)
If you’re an email marketer, you need to be thinking about mobile – and if you’re thinking about mobile, you need to be following Justine Jordan. Just as Dennis is deeper than I am in privacy and deliverability, Justine has much more detailed knowledge about email coding and design than I do. And, for many of us, coding can be a bit of a dry topic, but Justine is so energetic and it’s clear that she loves what she does; she makes it fun! You can also follow her musings on all things email and mobile on the Litmus Blog and be sure to check her out on Twitter!
Loren McDonald (@lorenmcdonald)
I have been a fan of Loren McDonald‘s for as long as I can remember. As Vice President of Industry Relations for Silverpop, which is now an IBM company, he travels the world (really!) evangelizing the benefits of good email marketing. He’s able to leverage case studies from Silverpop clients as well as research the company does to show us all how to better, stronger, more effective email marketing. Check out his MediaPost column and follow him on Twitter!
Additional Influencers I Follow:
John Caldwell (@jacaldwell)
John Caldwell is not only one of the smartest email marketers I know, he’s one of the nicest. And that’s saying a lot, because most of the people in the industry are nice. His Email Vendor Guides are a fabulous resource if you’re looking for an email service provider (ESP). I like following him because he is so strong on the technical aspects of email – he is much wiser on migration, integration, and automation issues than I am. He’s very data-focused. Check him out on Twitter.
Stephanie Miller (@StephanieSAM)
Stephanie Miller is great – one of the smartest people I know, who is now chief listening officer for the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) after years at Return Path. Not only does she herself write for both ClickZ and the DMA’s blog, she is obviously a voracious reader; her tweets often lead me to valuable articles I would have missed otherwise. She covers a lot of territory – it’s not just about email marketing – so it provides a broader view of the online, and sometimes the offline, marketing worlds. Join the nearly 5,000 people who already follow her on Twitter.
Ryan Phelan (@ryanphelan)
Ryan Phelan was a finalist for the EEC’s Stefan Pollard Marketer of the Year Award in 2013. His contributions to the EEC and the industry are amazing. In addition to being chair of the EEC’s Member Advisory Committee, he delivered the closing keynote at the EEC14 conference and challenged us all to up our email marketing game! Ryan is very big-picture, which I like because I have a tendency to get focused on the details. Follow him on Twitter.
Whether you’re new to email marketing or you’ve been doing it a while, these six email marketing pros are must-reads in my book.
Until next time,
Jeanne
