“…I really do know a lot about email both technically and from a business sense. I keep seeing a few common mistakes that people make and a failure to leverage email as a marketing medium. Here’s some suggestions.”

“Helping socially progressive non-profits build and strengthen relationships with Internet-connected audiences.”

“Email — the Internet’s most powerful application is now a dominant application for interactive marketing. Email changed communications. It sells, promotes, brands, informs, reminds and creates buzz. It’s one of the most cost-effective of all marketing media.”

“[Email marketing] testing should serve the purpose of increasing your response or conversion rates or helping you reduce costs. But also important are continuing to learn about your audience members and trying to figure out if they are really opening and responding to your messages.”

“A central pillar of successful relationship marketing through email newsletters is delivering valuable content to your readers. One of the newsletter marketer’s key jobs is to identify the kind of content that provides this value, and then to adapt and present it in a way that best fits newsletter objectives.”

“This is an email marketing story that doesn’t have a happy ending — yet. It’s a true account with names changed to conceal the client’s identity. And it’s a cautionary tale about how tricky business-to-business (B2B) email acquisition campaigns can be these days. Flooded inboxes and an increasing intolerance for unsolicited mail make it more difficult than ever to get the response you want.”

“Email newsletters are powerful tools for marketing communications. Typically very easy for users to subscribe to, they are cheap and easy to produce, can reach a large targeted audience, and remind potential customers of your business without requiring them to visit your site. Best of all, they work on a subscription basis. In other words, people ask you to send them promotional information on a regular basis! However, they can be a double-edged sword: get them wrong and they score a black mark against you every time they land in a user’s inbox.”

“Several years ago, my clever friend Roy Williams created a list of the 12 common mistakes advertisers make. With his permission, I’ve taken his sound ideas and recast them to apply to your email campaigns. Email marketing is, after all, a form of advertising. But it goes beyond conventional advertising, because it is also your princial pathway to building a long-lasting relationship with your customers. You really don’t want to mess that up, do you?”

“E-mail marketing — usually thought of as unwanted or spam messages crammed into e-mailboxes — must evolve if it is to continue in the years ahead, a new report says. A Forrester Research study found that e-mail marketing has to involve the recipient of the messages giving their consent to be mailed if it is to survive.”

“Determining the ROI on a newsletter program is not as straightforward as it is for a standard direct mail or direct email campaign. For most direct marketing campaigns, determining the ROI requires simply calculating the direct sales and costs for the campaign. With newsletters, direct sales are usually not the primary focus of the campaign, so the standard calculation neglects the principal objectives of the program.” (Requires free registration.)

“Brent Winters, President of FirstPlace Software, is very proud of the fact that his privately-held company has been debt-free since its founding in 1991… Many larger companies have floundered about, spending millions trying to attract buyers in the broad small business marketplace. Yet, Winters has been able to become one of the very top bestsellers in his category, without spending much on marketing.”

“As e-marketers realize the importance of branding, e-mail can become an even more powerful tool. Here’s how to increase your brand’s visibility.”

“Do your e-mails get results? If not, follow these rules for writing compelling communications.”

“E-mail response programs can play an important role in customer-relationship management and increase customer loyalty.”

“Smart people are still figuring out how to make e-mail and the Internet help employees be more productive.”