Direct mail has always had to live with the "junk mail" moniker. But over the past year, you would think it's also a part of the Madoff family considering how quickly people want to see it put away for life.

Yes, email is cheaper, but that doesn't mean it's always better. Email is particularly effective when the recipient knows the sender. When emails are sent unsolicited, though, their open rate drops dramatically. As it is, the open rate for email is only 17.5% according to Constant Contact's analysis of more than 200 million customer emails. That means 8 out of 10 people aren't even looking at emails they receive.

As more people send unsolicited email, fewer are being opened. A survey published in DM Bulletin indicated that open rates are dropping - upwards of 25% a year. This is less a symptom of ineffectiveness as it is of overuse. As more marketers buy email lists and use them for prospecting, more people choose to hit delete since they don't know the sender.

A 2009 benchmarking survey by DMA showed that 70% of marketers plan to increase the use of email in the next year. To support that kind of growth, email is replacing direct mail and advertising at a startling rate. Fifty-three percent of marketers said an increase in the budget for email will come at the expense of direct mail and 35% said it would come out of print advertising budgets. Two years ago, those numbers were only 33% and 21% respectively.

Some of the shift has to be attributed to the economy. With marketers needing to cut budgets, more expensive media like direct mail and advertising are easy targets. Email also has advantages that the other media can't offer, like the opportunity to achieve far more frequent contact with customers.

But savvy marketers are using the explosion of email at the expense of other media as an opportunity. With fewer direct mailers crossing prospects' desks or thresholds and fewer ads appearing in shrinking magazines and newspapers, those that are created can really stand out.

The key, of course, is to integrate email with appropriate print, electronic, digital and face-to-face marketing channels. As noted in the same DMA study, more marketers are integrating other tactics into their campaigns to support their email efforts. And which are the two channels they are integrating the most? Direct mail and print advertising.

"Although some resources are switching to email at the expense of other channels, this should not imply that email marketing is best used as a standalone channel. Many marketers are conducting (or experimenting with) integrated campaigns, as the following chart shows."

You know that one lesson from high school that made such an impression on you that you'll never forget it? For me, it happened in 11^th grade English. For every paper we wrote we could not use more than 4 (yes, 4) "to be" verbs per 500 words. Now I think about it every time I write advertising copy. It forces me to use verbs that convey energy and emotion and put the emphasis back on the doer.

Check out this very basic example to see what I mean:

Passive: Frost Miller Group's blog posts about copywriting are written by Liz Johnson.

Active: Liz Johnson writes Frost Miller Group's copywriting blog posts.

When I rewrote the sentence to remove the "are" it focused on me rather than the blog posts, making it more dynamic.

Sometimes "to be" verbs are necessary, but 90% of the time in our business, we just don't need them. So, take the challenge and try it. Eliminate those boring "to be" verbs and write in the active voice. Readers will find your writing more interesting.

Need a refresher list of the "to be" verbs?

Is

Am

Are

Was

Were

Be

Been

Being

Become

Became 

We put the cart before the horse on this one-launching our blog and interacting on Twitter and LinkedIn before writing an agency-wide social media policy! You know, a Code of Conduct for the Internet that will become part of our employee handbook.

Truth be told, we're a fairly tight knit bunch, so we all pretty much know where our comfort zone is for this sort of thing. Still, what if, down the road someone new comes in and thinks differently? That's why-large or small--it's critical for every organization to have a social media policy in place (and, AHEM!, preferably before engaging in social media).

So, as Frost Miller's social media policy is a work in progress with lots of ideas swirling around, I'm taking a one-question poll to gather even more input.

1. What do you think is the most important point to be included in a social media policy?

Leave a comment to let me know what you think or send me a tweet @frostmiller. And stay tuned. I'll be posting the "Top 10" points we included in our policy.

1. IMPORTANT: make sure you are using Editor v.2-if it currently says "Switch Editor to v.2" you must click it so that it now reads  "Switch Editor to v.1" as in the image below.
2. You cannot set spacing when you place an image in MagnetMail. You must first place the image, then select it using your mouse and, with the image selected, click the image icon in your toolbar. This pops up a new window for adjusting the image.
3. Set the vspace and hspace (this is vertical space and horizontal space respectively in HTML). I've set both to 20 in this case as discussed in the post on Tips for Styling Email Content.

That's it!  Your emails will look much better without the text bumping right up against your images and graphics. Leave a comment with any suggestions or questions you have about sprucing up your emails or Tweet me @frostmiller.