Is email marketing the solution?

Last week, two pieces of email arrived in my inbox. I deleted the first one, then saw the second one and saw a lesson for all of us to learn.

First. Email Marketing is supposed to be the next big thing in 2009. I have used it with some success in 2008. Take a look at this chart from MarketingSherpa.com:



But beware, because just you can do it too, you need to follow certain, basic rules:

How to Kill Your Email List

"Tough economic times increase the pressure on marketers to hit their goals for open rate, click-throughs, conversions, and new email subscriber acquisition," says DJ Francis at the Online Marketer Blog. "Some marketers believe renting email lists is a way to reach these goals." But, as the title of his post spells out, he believes this strategy is the best way to kill your email list in 2009.

Here are the problems, according to Francis:

• It's unlikely that content will be relevant to a subscriber who signed up for something else.
  


• This diminished relevance leads to diminished trust, both in the company that sold the subscriber's information and the company who delivered what she considers spam. "List rental is the toxic waste of online customer relations," he says. "It poisons everything it touches."

Despite these dangers, Francis cites a survey that found 29 percent of B2B marketers plan to increase the use of third-party list rentals in the coming year. He vigorously recommends against joining this trend.

The Po!nt: Build it yourself. "You can't afford to kill your email list during this economic downturn," says Francis. "But building your own list, building trust, and staying relevant can avert this disaster."

Source: Online Marketer Blog. Read the full post here.

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