I love aphorisms; they give the impression of intelligence without all that tedious thinking. (That’s one of mine.) I spend hours online looking them up, undaunted by the fact that they’ll make little difference to how I’ll perform, but here are a few with particular relevance to email marketing.

There are one or two general ones which I’ve tried to keep in mind, the most influential being Karen Lamb’s: A year from now you may wish you had started today. In other, less memorable, words: do it now. It’s never the right time, except in retrospect. If you have an idea that you think might be useful, you don’t want someone else using it first.

To return to email marketing, C. C. Hopkins suggested: Address the people you seek, and only them. There are two aspects to this. Targeting, the basis of our craft, comes first, and the second bit means that you should focus your attention on the task. Don’t add anything ‘just in case’. That’s essentially a waste of time and effort.

Gary Halbert nailed email marketing. His was a revolutionary idea remarkable solely because so few people actually do it. He reckoned: . . . the most important thing you must learn is what people want to buy. He said the same thing another way: Find a market first. And then concentrate on a product. 

I was a partner in a design company plagued by gifted graphic artists. I was sales. I would bring in a job and they would produce absolutely stunning designs, masterpieces, that had no correlation to what the customer wanted. The firm folded.

There are two aspects to this as well. You can either find an audience and opt for a product they want, or look for customers for a product you have. Do not try to sell something to people who don’t want what you have. You have masses of data on subscribers to your email marketing lists. Go for new customers or new products.

A stick-it note on a monitor looks a bit out of place. If the quotes above are on one, it will be relevant.