Picking up the old Sears catalog was a more personal experience than most Web sites. All of these made customers pay by wasting their time. The skills outlined here don't make your customers pay for your efforts to sell them. They benefit your customers whether they buy or not. The key is in your marketing-not in Web sites, banner ads, or technology.
Email marketing is the most misunderstood term on the Internet.
I'm not talking about bulk email or spam, where you cold-call a bunch of customers by stripping addresses and sending them a message they never requested. This is the myth of volume-that more email is better. I'm also not talking about push media, where you focus on a piece of software, hoping it becomes a standard. The idea is to continually send your customers all the information and advertising you can, automatically. You spend all of your time and money developing a product, and forget to whom you should market.