We all likely know Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory -- usually reserved for sales training to understand the state of consumer needs and how they apply to consumer decisions. Yet if email is a notification agent, an influencer to purchase and change, an educational and motivation outlet and a promotional tool, shouldn't you consider the customer state and how email can influence drives to satisfy needs?

Most anyone who's driven an email program would agree: it's a volatile, high-speed, NASCAR-style ride. As you zoom along the racetrack -- avoiding the potholes of ever-changing business goals, competing stakeholders, deliverability issues and rendering errors -- keeping the wheels on requires precision, a tough hide, plain old elbow grease and dumb luck.

Email, like life, is "like a box of chocolates": Sometimes you get things that are hard to chew. In the last year or so, my fellow Insider columnists and I have written about why email is neither dead nor dying, despite what naysayers insist. What will wound email is the enemy within: not spam, regulation or even the SMS/Facebook/MySpace generation, but our own ignorant practices. Stupid is as stupid does. If Forrest Gump were an email marketer instead of a shrimper, he would explain that when otherwise smart marketers do stupid things, they are, in essence, stupid.

Dear Email Diva: I am a communications manager who does it all for my art museum: creative, art direction, media, traffic, PR, promotions and all the rest. I oversee the Web site and about five years ago, developed an email program as a part of my master's thesis. It's time to grow again. I need to construct a policy and am looking for some guidelines. I don't have funds to go to a conference or hire a consultant.

Seeking skilled professional with extensive knowledge of email marketing, including all aspects of customer segmentation, deliverability, ISP relations, authentication, email delivery systems, creative design, HTML coding and campaign management skills. No need to understand reporting or analytics, as we really don't do much with the results. Must have strong communication skills, with ability to spin useless open rates into meaningful information and correlate it to great customer experiences that mean something to the business. Must have strong work ethic and thick skin, as you will be overworked and under-appreciated.... Is this job description really so far from the truth?

There are still a lot of marketers that just don't understand that they have to send emails that are relevant and not overly frequent unless they want to be reported as spam, even though the people they're sending to opted in to receive those emails.Just recently there was yet another study quantifying this shift. A new study by Q Interactive found that 56% of consumers consider marketing messages from known senders to be spam if the message is "just not interesting to me" and 50% consider "too frequent emails from companies I know" to be spam.

Last week we discussed simple ways to layer segmented content into batch and blast email programs. Personalization is another advanced but easy-to-implement tactic proven to produce more relevant campaigns, inspiring recipient engagement and stimulating program performance.

Dear Email Diva: Working in the health-care industry can make it difficult to market to the people in one's community. We incorporate e-newsletters in various health services including cancer, heart, women's services and others -- but what steps can we take to grow our email list to the general public in the area? We have an "Add me to Mailing List" link on our left nav, but how can I help grow that list? Any ideas?