The new email marketing: old email practices

Latest posts | Feed | By Mark Brownlow on June 25, 2008

Part 10 of an ongoing series:

(We're looking at the strategies and tactics that distinguish a smart email marketer from a bulk email marketer. See the New Email Marketing index page to access the rest of the series.)

The new Toyota Prius has a "central instrument display with digital speedometer, fuel gauge, shift-lever indicator and odometer with twin tripmeters, and warning lights." This sounds great. But it's not a lot of use to you if you don't know how to drive.

Email marketing now offers a range of exciting technologies, tools and techniques. But their promise can only be fulfilled if you first learn to drive.

Barely a week passes without some survey highlighting frightening holes in how large companies (the ones with the resources and the specialist skills) use email for marketing.

Just yesterday, for example, Laura Atkins described one big corporate's struggles to cope with an unsubscribe request.

Such is the degree of disinformation, denial or innocent ignorance that in 2008 it's still necessary for experts to remind us of concepts like delivering value to your subscribers or designing for preview panes.

The new email marketing has no need to reinvent tried and trusted concepts. Take a day out of your schedule and go through this post by Loren McDonald and this article by Karen Gedney and make sure you're up to speed on the aspects of email marketing that both list.

Then take another day to browse some of those resources dedicated to educating folk on email marketing fundamentals and make sure there's nothing in there you've forgotten or neglected. Places to start:

AWeber blog
Columns by Stefan Pollard, Loren McDonald, Melinda Krueger and Jeanne Jennings
The Constant Contact blog and newsletter
Michael Katz's writings
...and other resources listed in the email advertising basics section.

It's exciting to chase the new, but it's often more profitable to remember the old.

[This post brought to you by Campaigner Email Marketing]
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