A Wake Up Call For Email Marketing Newbies

Last year I predicted that 2007 was going to be "the year of the mailman" for email marketing, meaning that everyone including the mailman would engage in the practice.  This is evident in that Constant Contact now claims 150,000 small business customers.  The word is out that email marketing returns big bucks and the little guys want in.  True, email marketing does level the playing field between large and small online retailers since it's an affordable medium and relatively easy to press the send button.  However the newbies to the game need to understand that any monkey can click send and just as anything good in life, realizing a positive ROI from your email marketing takes time, effort, a little bit of smarts and an education.  Yes, you got to get yourself an email marketing education.  Don't be dumb and buy into unscrupulous pie in the sky marketing that you'll sell millions of dollars of your ill conceived widget by blasting some cockamamie email to a three million person list you bought for $300 from Raj in India.  And don't start crying that you didn't sell anything in the first month of sending your weekly email of skateboarding products because you were too stupid to figure out your customers are parents who purchased from you when their little Johnny was going through his skateboarding phase. 

As 2008 rolls in I welcome all newbies to the email marketing community and encourage them to seek the knowledge that will make them successful.  Before you start "blasting" a hole in your list, please read some books, do some research and talk to other people who have been engaged in the email marketing practice for a while.