As some of you may know, I was a CPA before I jumped head first into digital marketing and, in particular, email. So I feel just as at home in Excel as I do in email marketing applications. Now, I know what you are thinking -- how does one go from accounting to writing about email marketing for MediaPost? Well, it probably has something to do with the fact that I was a terrible accountant. However, while quickly searching for the next big thing in my career, I was able to learn a few things that have served me well …

Earlier this month, fellow Email Insider columnist Elie Ashery wrote "Social Media Vs. Email: The Debate Continues." Elie's right that there is a social vs. email debate going on; however, I'm not sure it's a valid debate. In fact, casting it as a debate makes it sound like marketers need to choose sides when, in fact, the real issue is one of integration, not selection.

Email newsletters serve as a relevant form of communication in nearly every industry. With such a range, it's a bit tricky to name best practices for all. That said, we've compiled some creative and strategic considerations for using email newsletters effectively, including examples from successful brands across a number of verticals.

It's easy in a tough market to hunker down, curl up into a ball and protect the few things you have control over. It's easy to cut costs, become conservative and squash creative and entrepreneurial thinking. In these times, the actions you take can either enrich your organization and spawn creativity beyond where it is today -- or it can paralyze creative thinking and create silos in your organization.

Transactional messages are a golden opportunity to engage with customers: to introduce or extend the email relationship with customers or subscribers, to anticipate and answer questions or to cross-sell or up-sell products or services. Yet, many marketers don't take advantage of this easy and obvious benefit.

The current economic climate has been both a blessing and a curse for email marketers. On the positive side, email is a great channel for marketing under recessionary pressures: due to the high ROI and immediate, measurable effectiveness of the channel, C-level executives are taking notice and email is gaining exposure and increased importance within organizations. This increased visibility is a double-edged sword, however. As C-level executives take more interest in the channel, they are also asking questions and making recommendations that often fly in the face of best practices so many email marketing program owners have worked hard to …

What else are you doing while reading this article? In our multimedia, multitasking world, the subscriber's attention span is nearing saturation. Gaining permission to opt-in for email is harder today than it was 10 years ago, when email was brand-spanking-new and inboxes were less crowded. Some marketers have evolved along with subscriber expectation. Others, well, not so much.

Years ago I penned an article for Media Post titled "The Last Mile of CRM." I spoke to the evolution of, and predictions for, CRM and ended with recognizing that email was this last mile of the CRM equation. So if email is the last mile of CRM, then social media and the emergence of social CRM is the last quarter-mile of this never-ending race.

"Doing more with less." For marketers, this is not a recession-specific catchphrase. In my experience, organizations are always asking marketing departments to do more (drive more leads, Web site visits, online transactions) with less (budget, staff, services). While this tendency has caused more than a few ulcers, the positive byproduct has been (and continues to be) innovation in direct marketing technology. In fact, it is safe to say that it's easier than ever for marketers to do more with less. The trick is finding the application of technology that makes the most sense for your business. From an email communication …

Most of us have been in a nice restaurant, maybe at a romantic dinner, where a parent fails to control the actions of a child who is running around like a banshee. In many organizations, organizational "children" are running free when it comes to email, and their parents aren't paying any attention, or have no idea how to control them. Unfortunately, the damage and pain these rowdy "kids" cause can be massive and expensive. These "children" are divisions, salesmen, distributors, franchisees, etc., (which for the purposes of this article, I will refer to as field organizations) that send email campaigns …