To paraphrase Mark Twain, my earlier post about email's demise was exaggerated. For it appears that folks "in the trenches" -- like my colleague Joshua Fruchter at eLawMarketing -- who handles email campaigns for law firms and other clients on a day-to-day basis continue to experience phenomenal results with email marketing, spam notwithstanding.

eLawMarketing is a perfect example of how to do email right. With a stellar client list that includes the International Bar Association, and such large law firms as DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary, Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, and Milbank Tweed, eLawMarketing is finding that open and click-through rates on law firm email newsletters and alerts remain very strong while unsubscribes are practically nil.

And as Josh points out, email remains a medium by which you can instantly deliver content that is personalized and tailored to reader interests and in which you can track reader behavior at the individual recipient level (offering an execellent source of market intelligence).

And in the e-commerce sphere, email remains a key driver of sales. Josh tells me of one of e-commerce client - Glenny's - which saw saw annual online sales of their healthy snacks triple from low five figures to mid-six figures largely on the strength of their innovative email campaigns.

Firms such as eLawMarketing have confronted the spam issue head-on by pioneering solutions that increase deliverability, including:

• Software to screen emails for "voodoo" words that might trigger filters
• Whitelisting with ISPs
• Private IP addresses
• Participation in Ironport's Bonded Sender program.

Solutions like these separate the "email men" from the boys.

Blogs or e-mail what works best? Answer: both.  At eLawMarketing, experience working with more than 50 law firms and legal organizations has shown that email remains a powerful tool for communicating with EXISTING clients. Because clients typically communicate with their attorneys via email on a regular basis, there are virtually no filtering issues. Clients will also immediately recognize their law firm's name when an email alert arrives in their inbox, thus eliminating concerns about source. Indeed, when a client sees an email alert from their lawyer about some new law or regulation that affects their business, you can bet they'll read it - and fast.

On the other hand, blogs have emerged as an excellent tool for establishing oneself as an authority with the media, and reinforcing expertise with potential clients who may not wish to receive email from a law firm with whom they don't have an existing business relationship. Recognizing this strength, firms such as eLawMarketing have entered the blog design field with vigor. As but one example, eLawMarketing client JD Bliss has rapidly emerged as a leading information source for attorneys on work/life balance and career satisfaction largely on the strength of its blog at http://www.jdbliss.com

Tongue-in-cheek, Josh has pointed out that for every blogger who claims "email is dead," you'll probably find a link on their blog to their email address stating "Email Me" or "Contact Me." Very true. Looks like both technologies are here to stay for the long haul.