Well, you know very well what it feels like to have a full inbox clamouring for your attention. But you also know what it is that encourages you to open, read and respond to emails.

In brief, the three basics that you always need to have covered are:

The When – making sure your email hits the inbox at just the right time
The What – grabbing attention with a perfect subject line
The Who – segmenting your list to make sure the right people get the right story

Even if you have these boxes checked, should the content of your campaign miss its mark, your subscribers will be much less inclined to open the next mail you send, so you have to remember to live up to the promise of your subject line.

With all that said and done, you know as well as anyone that when email marketers get it right – and we mean REALLY right – we don’t just open and read the mail, we click and act upon its content, and we might even share it with our friends.

So, to challenge you to strive for excellence and relevance in your campaigns, and by way of inspiration, we have collected here 7 examples of what we feel to be great, and in some cases even brilliant, email marketing campaigns.