Email Marketing

This book explains the opportunities for promotion and commerce using the simplest and cheapest part of the Internet - email messaging. People worrying about fancy web sites and search engines often forget that much of the routine business conducted electronically is done via email - and the proportion is likely to rise with the explosion of text messaging via mobile phones.

It starts with a justified but rather daunting attack on spamming, then explains the advantages of an opt-in email message service, where subscribers have to make a positive decision to join your mailing list. There are analyses of various companies who are sailing closer and closer to the wind in ethical terms on this issue. The overall message however remains that you should be honest with subscribers, otherwise they will desert you.


The odd thing about the general approach is that it leads with business theory, and then brings in practical implementation almost as a secondary issue. Frankly, I was expecting these issues to be addressed the other way round. When they get under way with advice on organising an email marketing campaign for instance, the emphasis is on the business methodology rather than the how-to-do-it. The next chapter similarly focusses on targeting what are essentially marketing campaigns. If you had a product or service to sell by email, you would be no wiser how to do it after reading this chapter.

Fortunately they do get round to offering good advice on email messaging, but this is placed half way through the book - which is rather late. When they get round to the practical issues of producing email newsletters, the advice is quite good - particularly in the realms of gaining advertising revenue, and the ethics of promotions. They also list free downloadable software for tracking the results of campaigns and promotions.

This might be a publication which is suitable for people who already have the technical skills of running email campaigns, but who need help with business strategy and thinking through the advantages of this very cheap form of commerce. It is not a manual for beginners. A better starting point for them would be Chris Pirillo's Email Publishing.