"Email is not dying in the midst of the Social Media revolution," says Anna Billstrom. But your email marketing strategy, she says, must evolve to go with the flow. Take the way subscribers read email. You probably have a BlackBerry or an iPhone, and so do your customers. It's therefore critical that you gear messages for on-the-go readers with streamlined copy, meaningful images and plenty of links that make it simple to follow up or take action.

Also, remember that email isn't the only way your subscribers receive content. "With the advent of micro-blogging tools," she says, "you can repurpose your content in the form of mini updates on several platforms such as Tumblr, your blog, your site, or Plurk." To do that, implement ideas like these:

• Use email sidebar links to invite customer interaction at social media sites. Example: "Follow us on Twitter, FaceBook, etc."
• Syndicate content through aggregators such as FriendFeed and Social|Median.
• Simplify and consolidate updates with a tool like Ping.fm. "[I]t will make your job as an author much easier," says Billstrom.

You can also create your own social network with a service like Ning. But Billstrom argues this might not be worth the effort. "These sites can be burdensome from a maintenance point of view," she notes, "and there is far less networking and internetworking available."

The Po!nt: Diversify. "Customers are telling you how they want information," says Billstrom. "[I]t may not be just via email."

Source: MarketingProfs. Click to read the article.

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