Starting into December, the holiday email marketing starts to really heat up. We are looking forward to seeing innovative ideas and designs in our inboxes. Some of the most interesting articles we read over the past week cover increasing conversions with tips from a six-year-old, the right length for a subject line, and some great examples of responsive design in email.

• The Holiday Email Marketing Life Cycle – There’s a lot of great info out there about designing your marketing plan around the customer life cycle, but we thought this was unique because it covers a smaller period in customer life cycle.
• 8 Lessons a 6 Year Old Can Teach You About Your Landing Page – Aside from a fantastically funny image at the beginning of the post, this article offers nice tips for improving your landing pages to deliver more conversions.
• Defined. The correct length for a subject line. – With a nod to Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Tim Watson gives the best length for a subject line, once and for all. And it’s not 42.
• Learning By Example: 9 More Responsive Emails – A look at some good examples of responsive design in the wild.
• Why Email Is Not ‘Either-Or’ – Email marketing isn’t either reach or relevance, and successful email marketers need to work from both sides to create the best possible email program.
• Bonus Infographic: Santa’s Top 10 Email Deliverability Tips – Lyris shares Santa’s list of nice deliverability tactics. With so many companies working to get a piece of consumer’s inbox and attention, it’s more important than ever to follow better than best deliverability practices.
  

What have you been reading this week? We’d love to hear. Drop us a note in the comments or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or Pinterest.

Photo courtesy of Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com.