In this post on the UK DMA’s Email Marketing blog, Jonathan Burston summarizes what he learned at a recent email marketing conference:

1. Data is key – collect enough but not too much as you risk customer disengagement. Use the data you collect and continually ask your customers questions to build up a richer picture of their attitudes. Also gain an understanding of why people no longer want to hear from you, so that you can apply those learnings to your strategy.
2. Protect your customers and protect your brand. Change the perception of the value of email within your organisation. Use email to drive long term growth and not continued short term offers to generate short term results. Continue to do the latter and your at risk of losing your customers and diminishing the value of your brand.
3. Make your email campaigns customer driven not marketing driven. Remember there is an individual at the end of your communication. Put yourself in their shoes, think about what’s in it for them and what they need to do to respond. Build an experience with your customers and give them value back. Remember that customers judge you on each and every email you send.
4. Make your emails relevant. Relevance makes your email work harder for you. Segment your customers, use triggers, personalise, add interactivity and continually test. The more relevant you are the more often you can communicate.

Source: UK DMA’s Email Marketing Blog