When I talk about email marketing in my classes, I sometimes get baleful stares. “Isn’t email dead?” they wonder. “Isn’t this a class on social media?”

Email marketing is most definitely not dead. I get it, everyone obsessed with the newest, shiniest social medium out there (hi, Periscope!), and yeah, I am, too.

But here’s the thing: email marketing is owned marketing. What does that mean? Well, Mark Zuckerburg owns Facebook. You do not own your Facebook page. You can put tons of time and money into it, but at the end of the day, if for some reason Facebook decides your page is doing something wrong, they can remove it, no judge, no jury, no trial.

Whereas your email list–you own that. No one can take it away from you.

I know lots of people think of email marketing as old-fashioned, and yeah, it’s been around for a while. It’s been around because it works. People are inviting you into their inbox. And as long as you are providing them with valuable content, they will continue to do so. Email marketing also allows you to link directly back to your products or services, and you can even see how many people clicked on that “buy now” link. It’s pretty awesome.

I’ll be doing a series of posts over the next few months for the Constant Contact blog on the topic of Content Curation versus Content Creation. I love the Constant Contact blog, and it’s one of my go-tos when I am curating content. I’d encourage you to subscribe to it.

And speaking of subscriptions, I’ll be sending out my Blogging Mastery e-news in a couple of days. It’s curated content–5 links each month to the best articles on the web about blogging. You can sign up for it here.

And now for today’s Infographic courtesy of Solutions 8. If you are doing email marketing, there are some great tips in here, like:

• Keep your headlines short, and use words that inspire people to open your email. For a couple of my clients, we run contests every month, and that is reflected in our subject line. This results in a 40% open rate.
• Keep it graphically simple. Include images, and 3-4 “articles,” but keep fonts and colours to a minimum. Sending people loud, badly-designed emails is a great way to get them to click “unsubscribe.”
• Always include a call to action! (enough said)
• Send early. Most email marketing programs allow you to schedule your email to go out at the time you want. I usually schedule mine for 8:45 am, because people will open it when they get to work.
• Personalize. If you have people’s first names, include it in the email, or in the subject line. It makes it way more personal, and you’ll get a better response.

Are you using email marketing? I’d love to hear your top tips! Share in the comments below.