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Email - The Battle Never Ends

Throughout the years, email has always has good intent, and gotten a bad rap.

At its beginning, email was accused of being a questionable mode of communication…and then became spam…then grew to the point where it was accused of overwhelming and overtaking our lives…and now the latest—“Email addles the brain.”

When you think about it, email has been battling for respect since day one, like one of those little toy soldiers battling their way through the real (and very large) world.

I received this photo of an Army man from someone who is believed to be slowly taking over the world. And it was this photo that got me thinking. Why is it that email has had such a long hard battle?
Why can’t people see its virtues and provide it the “props” it deserves? Why is it always a knock-down, drag-out fight to get the press and media to respect email and understand it has become more valuable to consumers today than almost any other mode of communication?

After all, email is kind of like the protector of the digital message. It acts as a buffer for all other modes of communication. As consumers, we can easily provide our email address to verify that the message is secure, provides us relevant information and is able to speak to us and delivery on the expectations we have set. And when the emails we receive don’t live us to those standard, we can easily opt-out, unsubscribe, or change our email address, without having to give out any other information like home address, phone number or other demographics.

Thank you email, for keeping other communication channels safer, and for never giving up!

If you are someone who doesn’t like to give up, I throw out this triple eec challenge to you—Get a free year of eec platinum membership if you can email me these three items of information:

1) The name of the photographer of the pictures above;
2) The location where these photos were taken; and
3) A new photo of these army men somewhere other than these locations.

—Jeanniey Mullen of the eec

Posted on April 6, 2008 10:37 PM |

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the voice of email
Welcome to the Email Experience Council's blog, a forum for the email marketing industry's leading voices. On these pages, you'll find the opinions and thought-leadership that's driving the next evolution of email.

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the voices of email

The Email Experience Council's membership includes many of the brightest and most committed email marketing experts. We're pleased to have some of them share their insights here on these pages. Our blog contributors include:

Elie Ashery is the president and CEO of Gold Lasso, and is responsible for the company’s vision and strategy execution. Before joining Gold Lasso, he co-founded Newsletters.com in 1997, selling it to The Tribune Cos. in 2000. He then worked for IncenSoft, focusing on email marketing while there. Read more.

Amy Bills is the senior manager of field marketing at lead optimization company Bulldog Solutions. She is responsible for lead generation and the go-to-market execution of Bulldog's new products and initiatives. Amy was previously the editorial team leader of Freescale Semiconductor’s internal creative agency and a senior editor at Hoover’s Online. Read more.

Nicholas Einstein is director of strategic and analytic services at Datran Media. Specializing in email and CRM strategy, he helps some of America’s top brands leverage online channels to communicate more effectively with their customers and prospects.

Lisa Harmon is a principal at Smith-Harmon, a creative services consultancy dedicated to email marketing strategy and production. She works with marketers to increase clickthrough, maximize revenue, and infuse delight into their email creative. Lisa is also the blogger behind edm.smith-harmon.com, an ongoing commentary on the best (and worst!) in email marketing creative. Read more.

Chip House is ExactTarget's VP of marketing services, leading the teams responsible for client success. He was named to BtoB Magazine’s 2005 “Who’s Who in B-To-B,” for being a vocal proponent of legitimate commercial email and an active lobbyist regarding spam and privacy issues. Read more.

Stephanie Miller is VP of strategic services for Return Path, the leading email performance company. She works with marketers to earn a higher ROI and response from their acquisition and retention email programs—developing content, contact and segmentation strategies, along with testing, measurement and production programs. Read more.

Jeanniey Mullen is the eec’s founder and the global EVP and CMO of global online publishing company Zinio. She is a thought leader and visionary in the email and digital marketing field. A columnist for ClickZ, she has published numerous papers and is a frequent speaker. Read more.

Charles Stiles is the VP of worldwide business development at Goodmail Systems. In his role, Charles is focused on helping generate a better understanding of the email environment and potential solutions for a better consumer experience. He currently serves as the chairman for the Messaging Anti-Abuse Work Group. Read more.

DJ Waldow is an account manager at Bronto Software. He works with Bronto’s largest clients to help them achieve and surpass their marketing goals. An active member of the email marketing community, DJ posts regularly on the Email Marketer’s Club, publishes a bi-weekly email marketing best practices newsletter, and films BrontoFire. Read more.

Chad White is the EEC’s director of retail insights and editor-at-large. He founded and is the author of RetailEmail.Blogspot, a blog dedicated to tracking the email marketing practices of the largest online retailers. Chad regularly writes major research reports on email marketing and is an Email Insider columnist for MediaPost. Read more.

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