Every time I check my e-mail it amazes that I can receive a electronic letter from someone as close as the first floor of my house, to someone as far as Agana Guam. It has clearly revolutionized the way we communicate, think about all the inter-office mail that goes back and forth in your company alone. Before I embarked on my online career, I worked as a sales manager for the number one alarm company in America, one day we had a power outage, I have to say that it was a very uncomfortable feeling. The power stayed off for at least an hour, which quite honestly seemed like three days. The problem was the telephone was still working, so that meant I was still fielding phone calls with problems and questions. Without my e-mail, I don't have access to all the reports that I would get on a daily basis. The interesting thing about e-mail is, I think more people check their e-mail than surf the internet on a daily basis. I know people that I used to work with that did not have computers at home, and it was against company policy to surf the internet while at work. My mother is another perfect example, she rarely surfs the internet but is constantly sending me e-mails with jokes and funny pictures. There are millions of people out there just like her.
Targeted e-mail marketing probably is the most cost effective way to advertise your online business. The most targeted being paid newsletter subscribers. These people actually pay to receive information on a specific topic, so you better believe they are going to read those e-mails. This is very common in the financial world, more specifically in stock trading. Have you ever subscribe to a magazine and thrown it in the trash when it arrived? Of course not.
I never understood the big deal with spam, we get junk mail on a daily basis delivered to our homes at the cost of trees. I can understand not wanting the x-rated spam, but what is so hard about hitting the delete button? Have we gotten that lazy? I think a much bigger problem is spy-ware and ad-ware. I had to take my computer to the local computer store to have the spy-ware that had infected it along with all of my information removed, for a nominal fee of $130.00. They had to reload windows, and I can tell you I am not the best at backing up files, so I lost A LOT of files. I couldn't help but think as I walked out of the store with my computer if somehow it was a conspiracy. Infect the internet with spy-ware, then make a zillion dollars removing it and selling spy-ware software. Nah, that's ridiculous, isn't It?
