Dear E-Mail Diva: Is it better to get as much content into an e-mail as possible, or is it better to have minimal content with links back to a site?

I wrote an article a few weeks ago that spoke to the importance of having Key Performance Indicators, or KPIs, for e-mail programs. As a result of that article, I had quite a few responses asking for my thoughts on the best KPIs.

This week I would like to talk about the huge strides that we as marketers have made-- not only in driving results using email, but at being able to share our collective learning for the better good of the industry.

We are currently putting together the agenda for the next Email Insiders Summit, to take place in Park City, Utah in early December. As anyone who was there will attest, the first one was a huge success, so you definitely don't want to miss the next.

This week I had a question of my own: does Send-to-a-friend functionality on one's site turn servers into spam relays?

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. How about a thousand e-mails? Now imagine if you could control the marketing messages you receive, and they all came from your communities of sites and friends and colleagues. What would that do to the marketers?

When communicating with customers via email, it is critical to work with the interactive nature of email marketing rather than against it. Instead of telling your customers what they want and when they want it, let your customers tell you. Marketers must listen to the real-time, measurable indicators offered by their customers and respond with information, products and services tailored to their needs.

The Direct Marketing Association has a problem--and the trade group knows it. The Internet is without a doubt the greatest direct marketing medium ever invented--and yet the father of direct marketing, the 88-year-old DMA, has stumbled time and again in embracing interactive or being embraced by the interactive community.

Dear E-mail Diva: We do pro-bono work for a nonprofit organization, the Diabetes Research Institute Foundation. As we prepare for our next e-mail, we are wondering about the rules for subject lines. Is there some list of "don't use" words that you could point me to?

The Direct Marketing Association Conference hit my lovely town of San Francisco this week, and several of the Email Insiders were active participants in the preconference intensives on email. The Email Diva and myself co-moderated "Email: Theory and Best Practices" with a star-studded panel from eBay, HP, 24 Hour Fitness, and Avenue A/Razorfish. If you can live through two-and-a-half hours of email talk and find it interesting, you have my admiration.