Review: Email Marketing

Email Marketing
by Jim Sterne and Anthony Priore
John Wiley & Sons, 2000
Paperback, 303 pages

If you could read only a single book on e-mail marketing Sterne and Priore's Email Marketing should probably be it. It's comprehensive, it's balanced, and it contains a number of gems that you'd only win otherwise from hard experience. While Jim Sterne is a highly respected international e-business consultant, Anthony Priore is VP of marketing for yesmail.com, bringing the book both Sterne's wide scope and Priore's hands-on, in-the-trenches perspective of an opt-in e-mail list service.

They describe legitimate e-mail campaigns by first marking out spam as unsolicited e-mail that is sent in bulk to people with whom you have no pre-existing relationship. Next, they differentiate between opt-in permission (you choose to receive e-mail) and opt-out implied permission (you choose to unsubscribe from an e-mail list someone has placed you on). And while they're defining, they explain the difference between single opt-in (you choose to sign up) and double opt-in (your initial choice must be confirmed by an e-mail reply) to make sure that subscribers have given permission. (For my newsletters, I think single opt-in permission is enough, combined with an easy way to unsubscribe from the list, but companies like NetCreations' Postmaster Direct, who build their rentable, targeted e-mail lists for use by advertisers, go for double-opt-in confirmation to make sure people make no mistake about permission, even though double opt-in cuts down the subscription rate.)

One of the book's most helpful chapters is on "Crafting an Email Campaign." The authors outline eight steps: (1) develop a strategy, (2) define your objectives, (3) create the plan, (4) target your message, (5) create the offer, (6) determine frequency, (7) test your assumptions, and (8) measure the results. If you're new to e-mail marketing, the forms in this chapter are worth the price of the book: (1) Awareness Campaign Worksheet, (2) Prospecting Campaign Worksheet, and (3) Qualification Campaign Worksheet. Each worksheet provides checkboxes and blanks, as well as sign-off lines for each important aspect of these three common kinds of e-mail campaigns.

A chapter on "Targeting Your Message" explains how to rent lists from list brokers, and includes a form to help you select a list vendor. Another explains how to write an e-mail message that gets results, and discusses some of the intricacies of text vs. HTML e-mail messages. Another chapter explains how to market through newsletters and discussion lists, get subscribers, and sell advertising. The authors discuss testing, determining return on investment, and managing e-mail campaigns and the resulting e-mail received. The book concludes with insightful case studies and predictions about the future of e-mail marketing.

Email Marketing is a strong, sound, information-filled book. If you're planning to do much in the way of e-mail marketing, this book is an essential jumping off place.

You may purchase Email Marketing at a discount from Amazon.com through these links:
US: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471383090/wilsoninternetse
CA: http://chapters.ca/Affiliates/ItemPage.asp?producttype=1&affid=104410&ISBN=0471383090
UK: http://amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471383090/732
DE: http://amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471383090/wilsonweb
FR: http://amazon.fr/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471383090/wilsoninternet
JP: http://amazon.co.jp/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471383090/