Remember when email was spelled “eMail”? And you read it from a desktop computer after dialing up with a modem and waiting for it to download? Makes me nostalgic for sock puppet commercials and Y2K panic.
Check out Wendy Roth‘s great article on the ways email marketing has changed in the last decade. It may have lost its shiny-object luster, but email is more important than ever as brands look to be more personal and relevant. Wendy does a fantastic job of highlighting what we’ve learned (at least what we should have learned) about what works and what doesn’t.
She says:
…email today is about each individual recipient: how to gain and retain their trust, send them messages they find most valuable, and market to them where they are, regardless of browser, platform, device, or even channel. Email isn’t just about email anymore, either.
Marketers who have recognized this fundamental shift and adapted to accommodate today’s dynamic marketplace are the ones today who are reaping the greatest benefits from email: a high return and a loyal, engaged audience.
In bulleted form, her 10 valuable lessons are:
- Acquisition is important, but retention is where the money is
- Email is all about the conversation again
- The ISPs are not the enemy
- An email message is its own creation, not a repurposed web page
- Email has broken free from the desktop
- “What’s in it for me?” still rules
- One size does not fit all
- A marketer can’t claim success until it’s measured the right way
- Email can go social
- It’s time to blow up the silo
Read the whole thing. Good stuff.
Follow Trae on Twitter (or send me an email)
Filed under: Channels, Email | Tagged: Email, Engagement, marketing | Leave a Comment »



This week I ditched a guy I was following on Twitter because he stopped respecting the 140-character limit. I suspect he won’t be the last, either.
In April of this year, Forrester published a paper titled 
This just in… Amazon has purchased Zappos. The Wall Street Journal