Fortune_Hunter - 3:43 pm on Jan 9, 2009 (gmt 0)

I get plenty of responses to my newsletters from people who are angry they got such mail at their work address, etc. I also get plenty of people who reply to the newsletter, despite the big, bold font that replying will get no response as the email address is no-reply@example.com,

I agree, people don't think things through before taking action when it comes to email and it seems to me that people are overly sensitive to email when it comes to crying foul or spam as the case may be. The fact is that because email marketing is in essence "free" to the marketer more people have chosen to abuse the system and hence have created a problem for legit marketers. This doesn't seem to happen with direct mail because the marketer bears the expense of marketing.

However I think all of this just reinforces my point. Until we can find a way to easily buy lists, remove the costs to others for email marketing in someway, and kill all spammers email marketing will never be an equal to offline marketing UNLESS you are marketing to your own in house developed list and have a great system in place.