It's always good to pause for reflection, and Mark Brownlow of Email Marketing Reports has grouped 27 questions you might ask yourself into thematic categories, along with links to insightful blog posts and articles that address each topic.

Under the heading of coping with increased competition, he poses thought-provoking queries like:

• What do your emails offer that people can't get from any other email list?
• If a competitor started offering the same content or similar offers, why would subscribers stay with your list?

Moving along to recipient fatigue, he asks questions like these:

• Are you controlling the number of emails your subscribers get (not just from you, but from everyone in the organization)?
• Do you think declining responses are best reversed by sending more emails or by building a better email program?

Later on, under the heading of optimized metrics, he wonders:

• Have you considered the email impacts that don't show up in standard campaign reports?
• When you get an unusually bad or good result, do you shrug and move on or do you search for the lesson and apply them to future emails?

The Po!nt: The self-deprecating Brownlow zeroes in on the bottom line with question number 16. "Are you implementing new tactics because some Englishman in Austria with a blog said they worked or because they make intrinsic sense for your list, audience and email model, or because you tested the ideas and found them beneficial?"

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