It will always be effective. Just look at every online store and corporation out there, they all do email marketing and have budgets for this year after year. The best is to build your own list and I won't mention here how to build y.o.l. but you can browse DP and be sure you will find enough info. Good luck!
I can tell you this. In late 2006 I stopped coming here because the Google thread was loaded with bogus posts and spam ( much like it is today). In 2006 I got sick of seeing when's the next pr update posts ( again much as it is today). I have grown since then tremendoulsly as an SEO. Why am I back? Simply because I can learn here. I have learned to read between the lines. I can also teach people here. Sometimes I will post on a forum and people do not agree with me, well that is the beuty of a forum. If we all agreed this forum would be awful boring now wouldn't it. I come here to see what others are ding and maybe discover things I didn't know, new technology, new idea's etc.. Do I make good money online sure I do. Do I need DP you bet I do. I keep one thing in mind, helping others and watching some of the newb threads does a couple of things. It reminds me of when I first started out and the questions I had. It also keeps some of the basics fresh in my head. It is the basics that keep us going. The tricks and teqniques are just an added benefit. Todd
Of course e-mail marketing is still effective. How effective it is depends on your experience, knowledge, and execution.
Get your own subscriber base by offering something like a report or mini eBook- then build a rapport and start sending them useful info along with your offers... this is the beginning and a vague outline of what it takes to make it work. Good Luck!
It is still effective and a lot have been reaping the benefits of email marketing. It's with proper execution that you get to experience the positive effects of this method. Make sure you're not spamming anyone and your recipients are well-informed.
I would say just get a email account at getresponce or awebber, plus there are a lot of scripts you can get. But thats a little advance for the time being. Start making a squeeze page for every campaign and send traffic there. This way you can always recycle your leads.
Take a look at ContactPro.com . They are about half the price of awebber and have good deliverability. With regard to running on your own servers... Not a good idea as its hard to manage all the spam complaints... and as somebody else said your servers IP will get banned.
I am using PHPlist for sending my newsletters. On of the beater programs that can be used by webmasters Aviel siteme.com
Tips to successful emails: -Personalization! (most important) -Deliver Quality Content -Do not "over-email" - once a week is sufficient -Do not try to "hard sell" customers...let them decide what they want -Always offer opt-out or unsubscribe methods
email marketing is the "good boy and bad boy" of internet marketing. It has been and always will be effective when used effectively. email is the first thing people check in the morning and last thing at night. Be creative, target if you can, use some psychology in your approach. Give them something they want and they will open your email. Follow up with respondents at least 5-7 times.