As I'm sure you've discovered by now, email marketing isn't magic. It can be a great marketing method, but, like any other medium, good results are not necessarily easy to achieve. Many marketers try out email only to be disappointed by poor response rates and inadequate financial returns.

Following are some of the most common reasons for unsuccessful email efforts, with some possible solutions -- which you'll find will often have as much to do with attitude as technique.

Poor List

As manager of the EmailResults.com Marketers' Market (http://market.emailresults.com), I'm in touch with many email advertisers and media buyers. Often when response to a campaign is lower than expected, the tendency is to blame the list.

List is certainly a big factor in the success of an emailing. If the lists owner's email data is old, poorly targeted, or poorly permissioned, then results can be less than spectacular. Likewise if the list gets mailed too frequently. To avoid these kinds of problems, find out exactly when and how the addresses were obtained. Find out how often they send to this list and ask for some sample response rates for campaigns like yours.

If the list owner or manager is new to you, get references from other customers before using them. Before shelling out a lot of money, ask the supplier to let you try a small-scale test to see what kind of response you get.

It's good to remember, though, that the quality of the list is only one factor that impacts the success or failure of an emailing. If a promotion bombs, don't assume that you were ripped off by the list vendor, as other factors can come into play.

(The EmailResults.com Marketers' Market gives you access to a large network of opt-in email list providers. To find out whether these providers have the list you need, visit this marketplace and fill out a brief request form, or visit the categorized directory. To submit your free request, please visit http://market.emailresults.com.)

Lousy Creative

"Creative" is an advertising term that refers to the concept, copy, and design of an advertising piece. In the case of an email promotion, the creative consists of the actual email message that goes out to the recipient, as well as the landing page and Web site that the email links to.

Good creative is critical to the success of an email marketing effort. So much can go wrong with this aspect of a promotion that it is best placed in the hands of someone with a lot of experience.

Effective creative starts with the "From" and "Subject" lines that appear when the email arrives in the recipient's box. Those lines need to move the recipient to open the email, which needs to be written and designed in such a way to get the recipient to take action, usually by clicking through to a destination Web page, or landing page. That page, in turn, needs to be written and designed to get the prospect to take further action, such as buying a product or filling out a registration form.

This is a process that needs to be carefully designed by an experienced direct response professional or team. If you've been successfully selling your product or service for a substantial amount of time, you might have developed that expertise yourself or within your company. If not, you need to consider hiring a copywriter or creative/marketing firm.

If you have a good list, a good offer, and good creative, you have a shot at a good response to your promotion. But if your creative is bad, your promotion is doomed.

You can find a copywriter through the EmailResults.com Marketers' Market, where many are listed in our categorized directory at:

http://market.emailresults.com/RFP/Directory/CompanySearch.asp?SEARCH_BY=Category&WHO=BrowseS&SEARCH_ACTION=Go&CAT_ID=9095

(If that URL gets broken up in this email message, you might have to copy and paste it into your browser in segments.)

The directory also lists some marketing consultants at:

http://market.emailresults.com/RFP/Directory/CompanySearch.asp?SEARCH_BY=Category&WHO=BrowseS&SEARCH_ACTION=Go&CAT_ID=9139

(Same note: If that URL gets broken up in this email message, you might have to copy and paste it into your browser in segments.)

Failure to Test

Frequently I hear marketers say, 'I've tried email and it doesn't work.' Usually this opinion is based on one email promotion sent out to one list. But in an email effort, many variables contribute to the success or failure of any one emailing. Successful direct response marketers use testing to tinker with those variables and find out what works. Resist the impulse to blow your whole advertising budget on one big email blast. Break it down into smaller tests to find the most responsive lists and the best-pulling offer and creative.

Not Building Your Own List

Advertising through other's email lists -- whether "rented" opt-in lists or email newsletters -- can certainly be a productive way to drive Web traffic and generate sales. But for most businesses, I encourage you to commit at least some resources to building your own permission-based email-marketing database. You'll need to think out what kind of list strategy would work best for you -- a newsletter? daily email alerts? company announcements? weekly specials? press release distribution?

Renting advertising space from someone else will always be an expense, but your own list is an asset. It gives you an audience that you can build a relationship with over the long haul.

Too Much Competition

Competition can take several forms. Businesses selling similar products compete directly against one another. But sellers of dissimilar products can also be in competition, if they are going after discretionary funds in the hands of the same potential customers. And in a way, all advertisements compete with one another for the limited attention of consumers who are constantly bombarded with promotional messages. This is especially true in the world of email marketing. Typically, the longer a person uses the Internet, the more email they receive and the more likely they are to just delete anything that doesn't interest them right at the moment.

Certain business ideas have been tried and tried again, and the market is so crowded that there's virtually no way to promote these businesses profitably, at least for a new business trying to enter the market. For example, somebody out there in the online world is still convincing Internet business newbies that they can make a living by setting up porn Web sites and online casinos. Moral considerations aside, these are business areas that are all sewn up by a relatively small number of major players. No surprise that new people trying to promote these kinds of businesses by email typically get a poor response.

The same holds true with many of the products and services frequently marketed as home-based business opportunities -- nutritional and health products, pre-paid legal services, credit repair, telecommunications reselling, and so on. The same goes for many of the typical Internet-based business opportunities, such as ebooks, software reselling, and affiliate offerings. In these kinds of business areas, the combination of low margins and low response rates usually leads to unacceptably high marketing costs. Not always, but usually.

These days, people receive so much email that it's hard to get them to pay attention. If your product is in any of the same-old-same-old categories, you have very little chance of getting even a moment's attention.

It's hard to get people to listen to advice like this. In the U.S. (other countries also, I'm sure), we have a culture that encourages you to think that anyone can go out there and start a business and become financially independent through grit, determination, and belief in your dreams. I don't disagree with that essential idea, but I do think that most people who try to start businesses go about it in ways that are doomed to failure. More on this in the next point below ....

A Product Nobody Wants

Since I started working in online marketing in 1994, I've encountered thousands of business ideas -- maybe tens of thousands. Nearly all of them are being promoted by true believers. Unfortunately, many of these true believers are deluded about the feasibility of their business ideas. As an entrepreneur, I hate to be the one to dash somebody's hopes and dreams, but there are reasons why most new businesses fail. Often the reason is that there's just no money to be made with this particular business idea -- it's just basically a bad idea, and no amount of marketing is going to make it work.

An Unreachable Market

In other cases, the product is something that might have a market, but the business development costs are higher than the entrepreneur is willing or able to invest. With this kind of product, setting up a Web site and sending out a lot of emails isn't going to help you reach the relatively small number of people who want and need your product and are willing to pay for it. To make this business idea work, you're going to have to do some serious business and marketing planning, positioning and branding work, and market testing in advance of any major rollout.

This kind of business development takes financing. Before you take out a home equity loan or go around hitting up your relatives for money, you had better get help from an expert source. In the U.S., the federal Small Business Administration sponsors a nationwide network of Small Business Development Centers that offer free and low-cost services, such as counseling and workshops that can help you work through some of these issues and even find financing for a business effort. You can get more information about the SBDCs at:

If you've been spending a lot of money on unsuccessful marketing efforts (whether by email or otherwise), I urge you to take a step back and look at these broader issues of business fundamentals before wasting more money and effort. Maybe your business or product idea is feasible and maybe it's a losing proposition. But why not get the help you need, so you can find out?

I sometimes get hate mail when I write articles like this, because I'm saying things that people don't like to hear. You might think that this article is negative, but actually it's not meant to be that way. I basically think entrepreneurship is a great thing and that email is a great medium for marketing. At the same time, I hate to see anyone wasting valuable time and money on a marketing effort that's just not going to work in their case.

Put together a compelling offer, expertly produced creative, and the right email list -- and make sure you have a valid business model -- and email can work for you.

We'd like to hear about your successes and failures with email marketing. Please click on the "Post Letter" link at the top left-hand column of this page to add your comments to this article.

Al Bredenberg is publisher of EmailResults.com (http://www.emailresults.com).