Marketing With E-mail

By Shannon Kinnard

Published by Maximum Press, 2000
Paperback, 348 pages
ISBN: 1-885068-51-4

E-mail marketing is alternately seen as the ‘killer-application’ of the Internet, or the scourge of business and consumers through the use of indiscriminate ‘spam’ clogging up e-mail boxes and raising high emotions. Using e-mail marketing well can indeed create big rewards for a business, but if it goes horribly wrong then it can also be a PR disaster. In the midst of these two extremes, e-mail marketing can absorb a considerable amount of time for little profitable return.

This book is devoted to getting the e-mail aspect of the Internet right and it’s packed full of valuable guidance and advice for novices and for those wanting to make more of this resource. In the same way that websites will succeed through great content, so will e-mail marketing generate the best results if the content is right - this book shows how to make use of the medium in the best possible way to use the content effectively.

Shannon Kinnard is a business consultant in the USA and in this second edition of her guide to e-mail marketing, she demonstrates how to expand and improve marketing opportunities, communications and online relationships at a lower cost than any other medium.

Dividing the book into two parts, the first two-thirds outlines the tools available, from e-mail newsletters and promotions, discussion lists, signature files and autoresponders, plus the all-important customer relationship management. There are also chapters covering online PR and advertising in e-publications.

The last section of the book considers the process involved and is, in many ways, the core issue of the subject and how to make it work effectively. E-mail etiquette and creating the right style is covered in some depth, plus there is a valuable section for the non-technical marketer on choosing and using the right systems and the questions to ask potential vendors. The section on measuring the success of e-mail campaigns has some good suggestions on how to do this and gauge what works, and finally there is a look at buying e-mail lists from opt-in list brokers.

This book provides a good summary of the tools and issues involved with e-mail marketing and will be a valuable reference for anyone wanting to make the most of this opportunity and relate it to their own business. Each chapter includes case studies, useful resources for more information (in print and on the web), plus a useful ‘cheat sheet’ summary of the main action points.

So if you need to know about dealing with ‘soft’ or ‘hard bounce’, the ideal timing of e-newsletters, whether to use HTML or text format in e-mails, or setting up a control system for testing, this book will give you the answers. In addition, it finishes with a short review of what the author considers are the best 20 examples of e-publications – mostly marketing related but including some consumer examples as well – so you can judge your efforts against some of the top-performers in the field.