Today's column will be a short one-- but I did want to mention that it's hard to believe we are less than a month away from the next Email Insider Summit.

Dear Email Diva: I work for a nonprofit education organization that sends opt-in newsletters to lists varying in number from 5,000 to 800,000. I've been pushing for a removal of non-responders for some time now, to help our open rates. I've been getting a lot of resistance to the idea. I've found several email marketing services that strongly recommend cleaning lists, but haven't come across the mother lode called industry standard. What's your advice? Clean 'em out or leave the deadwood be?

I'm now a member of the 40+ club, and my new status was greeted with a load of birthday email communications. Not only from friends, but from thoughtful brands, each of which remembered me in their own way. While 40 is a milestone, it is also a great time to razz your friends about getting old. So, I had a dozen or so personal birthday cards, the funniest being a singing baby from Super Laugh -- close to my heart, as my wife is seven months along....

If you see your email subscribers only as buyers, then you're thinking too narrowly. Your subscribers can also be your future workers, as many retailers have clearly discovered.

Good news on the email front this week, at least according to a study released by Forrester Research called "E-Mail Marketing Comes of Age." The report notes that email is now ubiquitous with 97% of all consumers, and 94% of marketers using email. This is up from a CMO Magazine study a year ago that stated 72% of marketers are using email as a marketing channel.

The Email Diva takes a detour from answering your questions to help spread the word about new research from the Email Sender & Provider Coalition and research partner Ipsos.

A lot of folks are jazzed up these days about doing sweepstakes, particularly in the context of list building. And list building is itself all the rage in the context of a shifting advertising and media paradigm. Despite the critics who think email is passé, email is hot, hot, hot. Everyone, it seems, wants an opt-in subscriber list, and they want it now.