Yes, I know it's old! And yes, I know the Internet is clogged with spam! But the recession is giving email marketing new life! Why the new life? The answer is simple. Businesses are turning to cost-effective proven programs that get results. Email marketing fits this bill perfectly.

Ready or not, 2010 is here. And according to eMarketer, 2010 is going to be a good year for email marketing. A December survey revealed that 69% of respondents plan to increase spending on email marketing efforts – more than any other marketing strategy.

To ring in the New Year, we've compiled 5 email marketing tactics that are likely to gain even more ground this year.

1. Integrating Email With Social Media.
This email marketing tactic – which picked up steam throughout 2009 as a way to boost cus

Email marketing is the exactly how it sounds.  If you are an "email marketer" you use email as your medium to promote products/services/offers to other people.   Often times your website visitors will not make a purchase from your site the first time they visit, and once they leave your site, they are lost.  Unless you implement email marketing techniques to capture their name and email address, you will have no way of contacting them again.  If only you could contact them again… would you be able to convince them that the product or service is worth purchasing?  What about purchasing multiple items from you if they are happy with the first one?

Webpage Form (pop-up or inline) -> Your Autoresponder -> Email to List w/ Offer -> You Earn a Sale

Email marketing allows you to create a

Do not underestimate having a mailing list. It is one of the most powerful marketing tools you'll ever have in your arsenal. I run quite a large mailing list on a few of my sites & they've always been very successful at:

1. Generating quick revenue bursts
2. Getting lapsed members & readers to become active again

Collecting a mailing list can be a daunting task, especially when you've never had any experience with it. But don't be alarmed it's not as difficult as you might think.

Firstly you need the software to collect the names & put them in a database. I use Aweber (19.99/month, you can try it free for 30 days) for this but if you don't want to pay a $19.99/month you can use PHPlist or

When you've ploughed through several thousand articles, sites, blog posts and emails to create a resource like this, you get a pretty good feel for which people and places provide the best information.

So I decided to compile a list of the Top 21 information sources for email marketers.

To get on the list, the place or person had to produce info that was useful, timely, relevant and trustworthy. And largely avoid the overt pursuit of any agenda or self-interest. (Pretty much the criteria that make a great email newsletter.)

There are dozens of great sites, blogs, newsletters and writers in the email marketing world, of course. But these are my personal favorites, based on hundreds of hours of reading and evaluation. If you feel a top resource missed out unfairly, let me know: I already have a second list in preparation.

In no particular order, I present you the official