The Rise of Email Marketing

Everything you read and hear about in today's marketplace is how bad
the economy is.  People are getting laid off, revenue  and profit
forecasts are dwindling and of course, marketing budgets are
shrinking.   Many executives will now look at more cost effective ways
to interrupt the consumer with marketing messages and one of the
mediums will be email marketing.  Email marketing is looked at by many
as cost effective with a potential for a high rate of return, so there
will be an inevitable push by many in organizations to either start
emailing or ramp up to do more email.

The other day, I was in my local coffee shop and I overheard one
person was talking to another about how her boss came to her and said
something about wanting to do email marketing.  He told her that he
wanted her to research how they can get their customers email address
so that they can start to send email to them to tell them about there
products.  She was complaining that she had no idea what he was talking
about since she was only in IT and she didn't know how she would find
the time to figure out how to get emails and then send out emails along
with doing her full time job.

Then, the other day as I was driving home I heard a radio spot on a
local station from a well known ESP touting that email marketing was
the next biggest thing and that companies should try their solution
risk free for 30 days to see what the results are.  All I kept thinking
during this spot is that the fact the email marketing is being touted
as a near free, easy and out of the box thing for companies big and
small to engage in.

Rather than pontificate in this post about the value of email and
how companies should be engaged in doing email the only thing I can say
is that I think we are staring at a glorious mountain here.  People are
going to look for cheaper ways to communicate with their customers and
email will be one of the ways for them to do so.  As a person that has
been on the client side of email for 8 years, I am here to help and
offer advice anyway I can.  When I don't know something or want to
learn, I reach out to those that know more than me to be that sponge to
do it right rather than cobble it together.

If you are an email professional, take a pledge with me.  Take a
pledge to help those who want to get started in email and do so in some
cases without the thought of financial gain.  By doing so, we can make
our industry do great things and we as a community of professionals can
hold our head high in knowing that we care enough about what we do to
spread the gospel of good email practices.

Lets be the Jedi's of email and take as many paduan's on as we can.

Last 5 posts by Andrew Kordek

• When Does Relevance Border on Creepiness? Thoughts on Re-targeting. - May 8th, 2012
• “Tell A Friend” Email And The Lost Opportunity - April 20th, 2012
• Think Big….but Start Small - March 14th, 2012
• Email Deliverability Sarcasm Part 2 (and why you should never go on vacation) - February 14th, 2012
• It's All About The Experience. Right? - January 13th, 2012