Bill McCloskey, over at Media Post’s Email Insider, today posted an inspiring article about the lack of passion in the email marketing industry. Ok – maybe that doesn’t sound inspiring, but as Bill points out in the article, there are very few people who openly admit they are passionate about email marketing… As one of those “passionates”, I felt I needed to speak up and be heard!

But after trying to comment in the blog and going through a run around of sign in/sign up pages (asking me for WAY too much mandatory info), I gave up and decided to post my response right here in our own blog = makes sense since this blog is all about email! So here you go:

Surprise from Canada! I AM totally passionate about email marketing (permission-based stuff, not spam) and I’m not afraid to tell the world! And when I tell people that I’m an email marketer, it’s true I often get the occasional funny look (read: oh you’re the reason I get so much *&%%#$#^ email!) It’s at this time I immediately ask them: “I see you look a bit stressed so tell me, what’s the first thing you do when you log on to your computer every day?” And then they almost always say: “Well, ugh, I check my email”…at which time I reply: “So either you’re a masochist, or would you agree there’s a love/hate relationship in the inbox?”…at which time they agree about the love/hate reality. I then close by saying…”Well, I (read: my company, www.cardcommunications.com) send those emails you love!”

Bill, I totally agree with you ~ people do love email as long as it’s permission-based email that is timely, meaningful and relevant. Long live email!

Carolyn Gardner