A product's "brand equity" has been described as the sum total of the tiny impressions a consumer builds up around a product, through each and every interaction that consumer has with the brand. Giant missteps either intentional (New Coke) or unavoidable (the Tylenol scare) can destroy a brand's equity over night. But more common is the death of a thousand cuts where day-by-day, small impression by small impression, a once strong brand is reduced to a shell of its former self. Think Saturn.

Dear Email Div: We run a small boutique email marketing agency from Monterrey, Mexico and send the campaigns from a hosted campaign manager. Since we have shared hosting, and reputation is now a critical deliverability issue, I would like to ask you: Do we really need a static IP, and is that enough, or do we need a dedicated server and a static IP?<

This is a common sales lifecycle for most marketers from a business perspective. A closer look at today's definitions of these categories shows that some have changed from past seasons.

If you have trouble snaring a big-enough share of your company's marketing budget and mindshare for your email program, your problem may be that you are arguing your case with the wrong numbers. Your CEO, for example, will likely not be blown away if you brag that your email campaigns or newsletters are beating the industry averages in open, click and delivery rates. So what if you have a 10% click-through rate on your last message? Big deal. Did that 10% help you meet your quarterly sales goal? OK, now we're talking!

There is a lot of talk lately about social networks and, of course, whether they will replace email as the primary form of Internet communication. If this sounds familiar, it is. Last year, RSS was going to replace email. The year before that blogs where going to replace email. And yet, according to research group Radicati, there will be 1.4 billion active email accounts at the end of this year.

The Email Diva is fascinated by the sociological/anthropological aspects of social networks, and eager to understand the impact of the new communication medium on the practice of marketing. And yet she feels a little slimy saying that. Do I wish to exploit these networks for my clients' gain? Well, yes... sort of. But the key is to be an authentic participant, transparent in your motives and respectful of the channel.

The theme of this week's column focuses on what makes email creative an effective art. Let's first think about how great creative is measured. Is it measured by open rate, click-through rate, or conversion rate? Is it measured by combined response over time, or can it be measured independently by each discrete campaign?

The importance of having landing pages match email creative enough that subscribers are instantly assured that they've landed in the right place is an undisputed best practice. Similarly, it's important for emails to mimic their associated Web sites in look and feel, not only for branding purposes but for navigation as well.

Today's article is about changing the way you do business. It all starts with the salesman at the Toyota dealership, who did a really, really bad job.

Dear Email Diva: I've been challenged in meetings to state how well our list composition compares with benchmarks. I've never found any benchmarks or standards, and our email marketing group isn't aware of any for this kind of email marketing program in our industry or overall. Do other marketers care about this statistic? Is there truly no quantitative research on the topic?