E-mail Marketing Basics

Mark Twain said, "Time and tide wait for no man. A pompous and self-satisfied proverb, and was true for a billion years; but in our day of electric wires and water-ballast we turn it around: Man waits not for time nor tide." That was true when Mark Twain said it all those years ago and it has become even more true with the advent of the personal computer and email. We don't wait for time and tide and we sure don't want to wait days or months to communicate with family, friends, coworkers or customers. Snail mail delivery was the miracle of the twentieth century. Email is the miracle of the twenty-first century. The first thing that most people learn to do when they first sit in front of a computer is to send and receive email. There are a lot of people that think that if they can send and receive email, they are computer literate. People love email. They love to send email and they love to receive email...well, they don't like to receive all email. The general computing public developed a real dislike for SPAM and that distinct hatred of SPAM brought about the CAN SPAM ACT. Email marketing depends on....well....email. When the CAN SPAM ACT was enacted, many email marketers simply folded their tents and slipped away into the night. Others began to search for ways to comply with the act but only just barely. Others started thinking of ways to use the act to their advantage....those were the smart ones. Email marketing is alive and well today. There are those who say that email marketing is thriving IN SPITE OF the CAN SPAM ACT. There are also those who say that email marketing is thriving BECAUSE OF the CAN SPAM ACT. Effective email marketing is a science or maybe it's an art form. In either case, the CAN SPAM ACT certainly didn't harm email marketers and it could be that it was actually an unexpected benefit. It's the knowing how that matters, so read on.