This headline's concept may sound crazy, but the two really are very different.  I have highlighted a few of the distinct differences below:

1. Purchasing addresses is simply the nature of direct mail while purchasing lists for email is strongly discouraged and can many times do more harm than good.
2. Unsolicited mail is welcomed by the recipient while unsolicited emails are considered spam.
3. Direct mail has a shelf life while an email's need for time relevance many times supercedes all other elements.

Thi...

In the world of email marketing, a substantial amount of time is spent discussing email design, list management and strategy. While all of those topics are indeed important, the most frequently asked question I receive from my clients is “What day of the week and what time of the day should I send my emails? What should I put in my subject lines?”

To the frustration of my clients, I always reply, “It depends!” Now don’t roll your eyes and stop reading my blog post just yet, there is an answer to...

Rush rush rush, many marketers are faced with an ever expanding job description, print, web, social… EMAIL! When will you get it all done with so little time and less resources? That is a question that many of my clients face every day. I hear so often after sharing my recommendations of what the program could be doing, I love that feature but I just do not have time to implement. You are not alone! Remember back to yesterday's post I wrote about the ROI of your email program. Understanding...

As a marketer, you have to be careful about the emails you send. With aggressive Spam filters everywhere, your email can easily land in the Spam folder. Your reputation as a sender is critical in authenticating your emails, ensuring its deliverability, and increasing your open and click-through rates. Here are a few tips to ensure your emails reach your reader's inbox and not the Spam folder: 

Maintain Your Email List: Having a big database is not enough. You should periodically run an email...

A great email program is centered on sending relevant content to the right audience, correct? How do you define your "right audience"? 

Why? 

Many organizations are probably randomly defining their audience. Some may be seeing results because they got lucky, but others may still be struggling to see satisfying email open rates, email click through rates, etc. Creating personas is a way to start sending more relevant messages to a targeted audience. 

How to Start? 

A good place to start creating...

Before you begin to think about writing your content or designing your email, you should take a moment to think about your list of email addresses. If there is one area in your email marketing program you should pay special attention to, it’s your list of email addresses and how you are acquiring them. 

A lack of attention to your list can cause you countless headaches and can damage your company’s reputation. The biggest mistake in list management I see clients making is purchasing a list of...

In an effective email marketing program, the quality of clients counts more than the quantity. Having a huge database of clients might sound lucrative, but in reality, even a few hundred who are potential customers, can help you leverage your business.

Identify The Crowd

• Know the age group of your audience. If you are going to sell watches, bags or fashion accessories, the buyers in the age group of 17-28 years would be more appropriate. Sending emails to senior working professionals when...

What tactics have you been employing to increase your email subscriber base? Many email marketers take the eay way out and purchase bulky email lists from a reseller.

If you are considering purchasing a ready-made email subscriber list and tempted to take this unethical shortcut to reach inboxes, you would do well to heed the following notes of caution.

• An otherwise amicable recipient in this email list is sure to look askance at any unsolicited message.
• Even with this list, you have to go through...

Email marketers have to always keep a tab on the frequency of emails going out to their subscribers. What happens if you email your recipients too often? Likely your otherwise affable subscriber will have no qualms about taking some rather undesirable action. At best the action could be no action at all. Your message is simply ignored, and then deleted. But there are other possibilities. Your message could get marked as spam. Worse, the subscriber could choose to “add sender to blocked sender...

Email marketing is a powerful tool to market your products and services. However, there is no guarantee your emails will be read or acted upon. A carefully planned out email marketing strategy can address all your concerns. Here are 4 key elements to develop a sucessful email marketing strategy:

Set Goals: Before venturing into a email campaign, sit back, think and understand what you would like to achieve. Is it to increase sales or to create brand awareness or to have more followers? Your goal...