Email is no longer a case of pressing send. In a crowded, noisy party with a strict dress code and a bouncer on every door, you need to take steps to be welcomed in and avoid being mistaken for a gatecrasher.

Deliverability: Avoiding being blocked by filters at ISP, and desktop level, whitelisting, acceptable coding, image to text ratios and many other factors determine whether your email will actually reach your intended recipients.

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Once you are at the party, you need to make friends. Looking good and sounding interesting is important if you want to remain the centre of attention.

Impact: sender IDs and subject lines, preview panes, multi-browser compatibility, design, content and copy writing, these are a few of the factors which determine whether your audience read your email, and how they react to it.

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If you misbehave at the party you might get ejected - you will certainly not be invited back.

Best Practice: Email legislation and code of practice is changing all the time; opt-in, unsubscribe, essential content and list management are amongst the critical conduct factors to make your communication campaign sustainable.

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You are hosting a party on the same night that lots of other are hosting parties; how do you get people to come to your party first, and to stay there?

Audience Retension and Development:forward marketing, personalisation, smart incentives, segmented communication and audience interrogation will all help you keep and grow an interested audience.

It will require a significant investment in skills, experience and technology to ascertain and deliver the 4 key factors and ensure effective and successful email marketing or publishing

......or you could talk to Inbox – get the message?