In the battle to reach customers companies are having to adopt ever-more innovative marketing techniques, especially as the battleground moves from traditional media to online services and email marketing.

But unless you actively manage your email campaigns the chances are your marketing strategy is in something of a rut, especially given the current economic circumstances. Many companies, unwisely, choose to cut back on their marketing activities at the first sign of a downturn.

According to Matt McNeill of Sign-up.to, following a few principles when it comes to email marketing can make a real difference to your business:

Don't steal
There's no other way to look at it: buying, renting or selling lists is stealing other people's time. In the email world it will also wreck your reputation with ISPs and subscribers, which will make it very difficult to get your emails delivered to the inbox

Work to make new friends
It's much better to make new friends instead. Make sure you've got an active acquisition program to get new people to opt-in to your mailing lists. You can start as simply as placing a form on your website and then build more involved programmes from there

Re-acquaint yourself with old friends
Sometimes, relationships fade, people stop responding to your emails and you lose their attention. Make a special effort to reconnect this year. Identify those people who haven't opened or clicked on your emails in the last few months and send them an email to ask them to re-opt in. Remind them why you're in contact in the first place and give them a reason to pay attention. Don't be tempted to try and email people who've actively opted out though

Be more interesting
With all these new friends, it's important to have something interesting to say. Putting effort into creating interesting content that engages your audience will pay dividends. Not only will you get a better response from your current subscribers, you'll also find you get more referrals

Test campaigns thoroughly
It can be tempting to get your campaign created as quickly as possible and then just press ‘send'. However, haste leads to mistakes, which can be embarrassing. Take a few minutes to thoroughly test your campaigns before sending

Pay attention to other's needs
Remember, friendship is about give and take. Make sure you pay attention to your subscribers' needs. Identify what's of most interest to different groups and target your campaigns accordingly. Your email statistics will provide you with invaluable information here, so use them wisely