There's a lot of misinformation floating around about the use of email marketing.  A lot of naysayers will tell you that the time for email marketing is over.  In January, MarketingSherpa talked about the results of its annual Email Marketing Benchmark Guide.  Of note to those who think email is dead was the fact that email subscriber lists continue to grow upwards of 20% a year and most marketers in the Sherpa study said the impact of email was actually increasing.

That being said, I wanted to spend a few minutes this morning revisiting the subject of email marketing… because it's been a while.

I was inspired by an article by Jeanniey Mullen at ClickZ.  In "What Does the Reader Care About", Mullen shares part of a checklist that she references when developing email marketing strategies for her clients.  It's a great list and it actually highlights some things we've talked about here at the Internet Marketing Monitor in the past.

In particular, Mullen talks about monitoring your competition's email offerings.  That's an excellent idea that I haven't really heard discussed before.  Not only can you see what they're telling people, but you can also use their email to help decide what you're going to tell them… and when you're going to say it.  As Mullen points out, don't send your message on the same day as everyone else in your business does.  Set yourself apart both in what you say and when you say it.

There are a few additional things I wanted to briefly touch on when it comes to sending marketing messages through email.

Email marketing is a particularly potent form of connecting with a customer… if you take advantage of it.  How many other forms of marketing do people actually sign up for?  Few, if any, real examples exist.  And I think that's why people get so irritated with spammy, obtrusive email marketing.  They've signed up for one thing… and now they're getting something completely different.  Incidentally, the first item on Mullen's checklist reads:

Know what the reader expects. Your readers gave you their e-mail addresses because they were expecting something. A receipt, a whitepaper, a newsletter, or something similar. Does the next message you'll send give them content they expect to see?

Email marketing also gives you an excellent opportunity to not only pitch new products and services, but also to increase your customer's awareness of your complete brand.  It can also serve as a great tool to educate your customers on the proper use of whatever you do for them.  If you're selling services, educated customers are 1) happy and 2) not tying up your support phone lines, for example.

But there are a few no-nos when it comes to sending email to people:

• Don't fill the inbox with email every single day (unless they have specifically requested such a delivery).  One of the quickest ways to get your email bumped by a customer is to over-send messages.  In fact, if you send too many messages you run the risk of being tagged as spam.  And if enough people start crying spam you could very easily find yourself on a lovely email blacklist.
• Don't send an email unless you have something of value to say.  Nothing irritates me more than to get an email from someone I've given permission to email me… only to have it be a "reminder" about existing stuff that I already knew about.  Worst still are the emails that say "you haven't logged in for X amount of days".  Guess what?  I'll be logging in now… to unsubscribe!  If you're sending people relevant, compelling information it should naturally drive them to visit your site.  If they aren't, it might be time to revisit your message.
• Don't forget to include a way to unsubscribe from your mailings with every single message you send out.  It raises customer trust and it also makes the process as painless as possible.  A customer who has a pleasant unsubscribing experience is more likely to continue using your service than one who has to beat you over the head with a lead pipe to get off your list.  Just because a customer unsubscribes from getting your email marketing doesn't mean they're no longer a customer.

For more information on email marketing, give Mullen's story a read and then point your browser over to MarketingSherpa.  They have some of the best data on email marketing available.