A few days back I asked the question, is email marketing dead? The conversation that sparked had a range of opinions. Some felt it is dead, some that it’s very much alive. Others agreed that it’s evolving. Read the comments and add your two cents, if you like.

One side conversation that developed from ask whether email marketing is dead was whether email marketing is a form of interruption marketing.

Personally, I think it is. So let’s begin on the same foot by defining interruption marketing. Basically, interruption marketing is any tactic used to market anything that works only if they (the marketers) interrupt your life to get your attention. In other words, interruption marketing is just that - it interrupts you and what you’re doing and steals away your time.

If we consider email marketing in that light, how is it not a form of interruption marketing?

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According to some, email marketing is dead because of beefed up spam filters. Others say that interruption marketing - where you’re life is interrupted by some marketing pitch has reached the end of its effectiveness. Email marketing is definitely a part of interruption marketing.

But what’s the truth? Have we reached a point where we should dump our email lists and find other channels to market through? Or is email marketing still as viable as it always has been?

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As you know, I’ve been away for a while remodeling our home in preparation for our new baby and then welcoming our latest Little Miracle into the world. So I haven’t “officially” worked or blogged in weeks.

For a moment, imagine the mountain of voicemail, email and blog posts I came back too.

The first few days I was back in my office, I have to say, were overwhelming. It took me almost an entire day to just to listen too, make notes on and begin wading through all the voicemail.

And email…do I even need to go down that road? I hadn’t checked my email at all in three weeks, at one point. That stretch, alone, left me with 1,500 messages to sort through - not including spam. I started sweating as I watched the number of new messages keep climbing in my various inboxes and folders. Needless to say, I didn’t even try to get through them. All told, I had thousands of messages waiting for me when I returned. Not through them all yet.

Then, there’s the 190 or so feeds I regularly follow in my reader.

I’m usually quite judicious at going through my reader; looking for the most interesting and useful post titles. When open my reader daily, it takes me less than an half-hour to scan and partially read all the posts on 190 feeds. But that’s usually a few hundred.

What do you think happened when I didn’t check my reader in a month? Same as email…but worse. Thousands of posts sitting unread in my feed reader. I know some of them have to be great. I know that some of them have to be helpful. What’s more, I know reading some of them would help me as a blogger and a business owner.

But there’s just no way I have the time to wade through all those posts to find the jewels.

My option…just not read any of them. Let them all go. Mark them all as read. What I missed, I missed. Simple as that.

I does pain a bit. But I guess that’s just comes from being afraid I’ll miss out on something amazing. And, well, I haven’t really. Information that’s that good will be back around. And I’ve certainly not missed out on the important things…like family.

Anyhow, when you’ve gotten way behind, what have you done to catch up? Have you slogged the mountain of email and lived to tell about it? How?

Do we still need email newsletters (or ezines, as some call it)?

Many websites today are setup to get visitors onto a newsletter list. When you read the copy on their site, much of it is geared toward selling you a free report or workbook. And how do you get this workbook? You have to ‘pay’ with your email address. That’s why I say the sites are selling you the workbook. Just because you’re not spending money, doesn’t make it free.

Anyhow, once you’re on the list you get targeted messages meant to get you to buy the next level of product or service. Often it’s an e-book or an entry-level seminar. Many times the marketing in the newsletter is cleverly disguised by a short article that’s meant as a hook to get you reading. Then the sales pitch comes - you need our e-book…

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve done it myself. I have a newsletter list and it continues to grow. As a matter of fact, it’s grown much more rapidly since I began blogging. You can sign up for it here.

But I’m beginning to question the need for a list. Who does the list serve? It serves me, right? How can it serve my audience when I’m in control of it? I’m in control of its content, the sales pitch, even when it interrupts your life through your inbox. All this keeps me, the business owner, in control.

Yet the marketplace is changing. Marketing is changing. Email is changing. There’s a wave of backlash growing against interruption marketing - and certainly against spam. Consumers now want to have more control over how they’re marketed too - and when. So is the e-newsletter going by the wayside? Are business owners just afraid to let it go because they’ll loose control? How do technologies like RSS fit into the mix?

Yaro has his opinion. What’s yours?

UPDATE: I’ve added a link to Ted Demopolous’ post, Blogs & Ezines? Complimentary? since he added it after commenting on this post. Thanks Ted.