Last weekend my mom and I ventured out in the warmer Iowa weather to head to Omaha, Nebraska. The main reason for our 2-hour-plus journey? Besides the road trip, which I'm always game for. A store. There, I admitted it. But here's how this particular store earned my respect and became a destination rather than "just a store."

I first happened upon Anthropologie's email marketing program while I lived in South Carolina and was visiting Charlotte, North Carolina. My sister and I stopped at the Anthropologie store for the first time, where I purchased a delightful Vanilla & Fig scented candle. At the register, I signed up for a free anthro membership, which is a loyalty program that offers free online shipping and occasional discounts.

And then it happened. I was not merely handed my membership card, I was handed a membership card in a floral fabric bag, along with an attractive accordion-style card that, when unfolded, offered me a list of the benefits of being an anthro member.

But the customer experience got even better. When I arrived home, I went to anthropologie.com to register my card and when I did, a lovely thing happened. Both my thank-you/confirmation screen and my subsequent email featured the exact, lovely pattern that was on my real-life fabric bag. How sweet is that?

The moral of this story? Offer that extra touch to your customers, and if possible, let that extra touch help integrate both your online and offline marketing efforts. Your customers will not only remember you--they'll love you! Or at least I probably will.

It's that time of year again. People everywhere get sentimental and begin to review the past year and its accomplishments (and not-so-accomplishments), and then eagerly start to make New Year's resolutions. Email marketers are no different.  Come late November and early December, the email marketing industry starts buzzing with "year in review" reports and predictions for the next year.

You'll see a common denominator in these reports and that is the realization that 2010 has been the year of social media. While email marketing may seem to be overshadowed by this new and shiny toy, the truth  is that the two go hand in hand quite nicely and work best under equal lighting. ExactTarget, a leading ESP, totally gets this as is evidenced by their brilliant whitepaper series, "Subscribers, Fans, and Followers" as well as their purchase of CoTweet, a top social media management tool.

As far as predictions for 2011 go, it is likely consumers will become more and more "channel-choosy." They will want more control of what messages they want and where they want them (Facebook, mobile, and email). The result will be a more defined role for email marketers within the whole media mix. 

On a side note, email marketers should also keep an eye on the new Facebook Messages and watch their lists closely to see how many of their subscribers adapt this new email service. Because Facebook Messages shows the plain-text version by default, they should fine-tune plain-text versions of their emails accordingly.

As always, it's a great time to learn and grow.