Today I debuted a new monthly column on eM+C called Email Marketing Strategies and Tactics Exposed.  The goal of this column is to highlight exceptional email communications and, more importantly, to dissect the individual components that make them work so well. 

Why this column?  During my years heading up marketing and strategy for Bigfoot Interactive, I used to do quarterly meetings with some of our largest accounts.  These meetings often involved a review of marketplace trends, research findings and competitive/campaign assessments, including best practices collected from the hundreds of campaigns we tracked.  This last bit is what got clients leaning forward in their seats, and it wasn’t long before clients requested more “real life examples” to discuss and learn from. The next thing I knew, I was doing a client tour around the country highlighting the very best of the best in email marketing.  This tour became a franchise for our company because it took all the talk about industry best practices and what marketers should be doing, and made it tangible and actionable.  I’ve always thought it would make a great column, and so, with this opportunity from eM+C it has now come to life. 

Why Now?   In my mind – success in ’09 will be founded on two critical concepts.  1. Marketers must push themselves to do better.  If you don’t have a comprehensive strategy for lifecycle communications – you should, if your not integrating email with other marketing efforts – you must, if you not leveraging best practices and analytics to optimize results – your toast.  This column will help you do all that and more.  2.  Evolution and innovation – the market and consumers are changing and evolving.  To build on success and remain relevant, marketers must embrace the notion of marketing with customers rather than at them.  The Participatory Marketing Network (PMN) was founded on that principle and it is our hope we can use this association as a platform to help marketers build innovative marketing programs that engage the recipient in such a way that it extends the success and reach of your messaging across the social internet. 

It is my hope is that you will find eM+C series of evaluations beneficial as you think about your own email communications.  Over the course of the next 12 months we will highlighting the best of the best and by this time next year my hope is to have built the ultimate email communications playbook.  Enjoy the column and if you have or come across an email communications program worth writing about, drop me a line at info@thepmn.org. 

'Til Next Time