This year, the grim economy gives you yet another reason to focus on getting the resources to move your email program past the old one-to-many model in order to deliver more relevant messages. One of the best means is to incorporate Web analytics data into your email program. Targeting messages to segmented audiences is usually the first step toward greater relevance. Pairing up Web analytics data with email delivers an even greater return, because it enables you to better engage with customers through their buying history or behavior at your Web site. Once set up, your program can be automated so you spend less time testing and optimizing your overall email program.

It’s fourth quarter — budget time — and in this economy many of us are focused on maintaining our budgets rather than obtaining approval for additional spend. As marketers, just like our colleagues, we need to step up and contribute. We have to do more with less or make a solid case for how we’ll do more with more. Email remains the most efficient direct channel there is. It’s time to stand up, pound our chests and make sure senior management knows it!

I’ll be the first to admit I’m a major email nerd — and so it was with more than a political interest that I observed emails from the candidates and political parties as they poured into my inbox this past year. Already, much has been written about President-elect Barack Obama’s campaign and its highly effective use of new media and direct marketing tactics to tap into and engage with a wide base of supporters. Many say this strategy gave Democrats the crucial edge needed to win this year’s election.

That was the theme of our meetings this past week in San Francisco, where over 100 senior people from our agency met to discuss and share stories and experiences of driving transformational ideas for our clients. I’m continually reminded of the creative minds and business strategists when I participate in these meetings. It’s both inspiring and allows me to sit for a few days and think outside of the email and eCRM realm. It’s not about communication, it’s about engagement. It’s not about clicks or impressions, it’s about business solutions.

When was the last time you signed up for your own emails? Perhaps better yet, when was the last time that you watched one of your parents sign up for your emails? Would they be able to do it — or would they get confused about certain elements of the process? Here are some of the problems I found cluttering up the subscription processes of top online retailers….

I know that many of us grow weary of questions about the best day or best time to send email. In short, the best answer is to test it for your program and determine what time works best to drive responses from your subscribers. All of the studies I have seen to date on the topic focus on the results. Important? Absolutely. But they do not give us anything in terms of context. Why does one time work better than another? What is going on in the lives of our subscribers when they read our emails or click through to our Web sites? Looking at the results tell us nothing of what was happening with subscribers moments before they took action. We speculate about the context of our subscribers’ actions, but it’s just that — speculation.

In “The Sensual Shopper,” Paco Underhill argues that “…virtually all unplanned purchases — and many planned ones, too — come as a result of the shopper seeing, touching, smelling or tasting something that promises pleasure, if not total fulfillment.” For email marketers, Underhill’s conclusions at first seem mildly disheartening. Very few products and services can actually be sensually experienced online. Yet through creative use of imagery, video, sound clips and copy, email marketers can provide opportunities for subscribers to identify sensually with their products via email.

I’m a multi-personality email persona — I have so many email addresses that I manage them in completely separate ways. I thought this week it would be fun to take a look at my inbox from one of my oldest email accounts and pick my Fab 5. This account celebrates its 17-year anniversary this year. In this inbox live an amazing track record of opt-ins and permissions that are in many cases outdated. I still get email from marketers that include my address from my very first home in Texas (over 15 years ago). Clue to marketers: Don’t use personalization if you can’t action on it appropriately.

Smart businesses keep marketing in down economies. Many analysts are already reporting that dollars are shifting to the highly efficient channels like email, still the highest ROI channel and earning $45+ ROI for every dollar invested, according to the DMA (2008).

One of email’s strengths is how well it continues to adapt to all the shifts and changes that constantly reshape the marketing landscape. However, those adaptations have implications that affect the way you use email to market today and in the near future. While as many as a dozen trends might affect email marketing today, I find myself discussing the following six key trends most often in my travels and speeches….