Results based email marketing

Two articles showed up in my RSS feed in the last 24 articles that touched on different aspects of the same issue. Senders should improve their email marketing program even when they are working well.
Stephanie Miller over at ReturnPath addresses the lost revenue from current programs.

Consider that if we can earn a nearly $60 ROI by creating email programs that are compelling to just a few subscribers, just occasionally – imagine what we could do if we actually optimized our programs. Your true email ROI isn’t captured by averages. It’s misleading to think about email’s contribution without factoring in the risks of batch and blast which include higher spam complaints and diminished deliverability, list churn and inattentive customers, brand damage and lost future revenue through continued irrelevancy.

Yes. Bad email marketing is profitable now. But the email landscape is not static. Senders must continually improve their programs in order to stay ahead of consumer demands and ISP changes.
Mark Brownlow over at Email Marketing Reports addresses companies who currently have successful email marketing programs even though they do not follow all the sender best practices.

Yes, some of the more advanced techniques and tactics rely on access to tools or expertise that, frankly, the majority of us don’t have or can’t find the required investment for.
But there are so many ignored best practices that involve minor tweaks requiring a few minutes of your time. No exaggeration…just a few minutes to make small changes that can make big improvements to your success.

Some of my clients come to me in crisis mode, they were blocklisted or suspended from their ESP for AUP violations. Because their email programs are suspended, they are forced to scramble to make massive changes to their program. This is the absolute worst time to be make changes, when under external and internal pressure. Often the changes that must be made to comply are drastic and immediate. In contrast, when making changes to a currently active and working email program. Internally driven, gradual change will avoid the panic and result is a marketing program more protected against blocklisting or suspension.