• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, December 7, 2009

Has email marketing's heyday passed? Not according to Eric Kirby, a top executive at CRM agency Merkle, as he starts his keynote.

Email has firmly been in the workforce for the better part of a decade. And he said he’s never seen a year where a company pulls back on marketing spending, and decides to cut back on email campaigns.

It’s “a workhorse.”

Then he moves to how email will interact with social media, and shows a photo of Richard Dawson. "The Family Feud" is back somehow, though it's not exactly clear why Dawson is on the screen. Maybe Dick Clark is next?