If you're already thinking about how to take your email-marketing program to the next level in the coming year, you should start by switching out your batch-and-blast program for one that uses lifecycle marketing to send highly targeted and relevant messages. Although it might be a challenge to persuade your upper management to invest time and money to upgrade your email program, this story of a company that boosted its conversion rate 40% using segmentation and targeted messaging might help loosen up the budget.

I'm so bored with the "email is dead" meme that I'm not even going to reference the article recently seen in a national newspaper that trotted out this old story yet again. I think it's exciting to consider the ways in which email is still the killer app. Obviously when you work for a company that focuses on email you have a vested interest in the idea that email is not dead. But I think both research and common sense back me up. Here are four reasons to stay bullish on email.

About a month ago, a friend of mine gave me a sneak peek at her beauty and fashion site's revamped newsletter, set to launch some time this month. Everything about the design felt fresh, clean, and engaging. It was organized to perfection, the visuals were spot-on, the copy was fun, and the CTAs were clear. Complimenting her on the overall creative, I pointed out in passing that she was missing the preheader, assuming of course that she knew what a preheader was. She didn't. So, jumping at the chance to show off my email skills, I pulled out my iPhone …

Here come the holidays -- a great opportunity to try an emotional approach with your emails. At no other time of year do we have an important marketing season that also evokes so many -- and such deep -- emotions in people's hearts. After you've optimized your offers, schedule, targeting, and so on, turn your thoughts to fitting the tone of each email to the season.

For those of you who don't know me (which is most of you), I am from Cincinnati, and as a result, I am a Bengals fan. My family and I flew into Cincinnati for the Bears-Bengals game, and Cincinnati scored touchdowns on its first 4 possessions, taking a quick 28-0 lead. Before the day was over they had rushed for more than 200 yards, thrown 5 touchdown passes and crushed the Bears 45-10. What a game to be my son's first live Bengals game. In fact, the game was so inspirational, I was able to draw comparisons between football and …

The holiday season is unique in that -- despite occurring at the same time each year -- it routinely catches many by surprise. Marketers are as guilty as anyone of falling victim to this phenomenon, cruising through the year until desk calendars start to shrink and someone in the office inevitably lets out a sigh and says, "I can't believe it's November." Translation: "We let it happen again."

Marketers are slowly catching up to their multichannel customers by ramping up usage of multichannel marketing tactics -- and email is at the core of many of those efforts.

I read a lot of posts about email marketing, yet I find we tend to simply repackage ideas, tips and thought leadership that have been discussed already. Think about the topics you hear about -- email strategy, personalization, segmentation, frequency, permission, rich media -- and how many different ways these topics have been spun. I have written this column for four years on a weekly basis, and I struggle at times to craft unique views of the space while not getting too far away from it.

My previous column, where I shared personal experiences about assumptions others have made about my wife and me without knowing us, turned out to be the second most popular column I've written for Email Insider, as measured by the number of readers' comments. I intended the column to caution against assuming too much about your subscribers and customers. However, reader reaction confirmed my view that showing a human, personal side in email, blogs and other communications content will lead to greater engagement with your customers and subscribers.

Email marketers have become the world's leading authorities on deliverability, readability, terminology, policy, client capability, predictability, reputation and metrics. If we don't slow down, we'll end up like the hack golfer who keeps buying new oversized drivers to straighten out his tee-shot, instead of fixing the hitch in his swing that's causing the nagging slice in the first place.