E-mail is as vital and important a part in the direct marketing toolkit as ever before. Competition for the scarce attention of consumers remains intense as marketers devise ways to make brand messages stand out amid cluttered inboxes. So, it is particularly vital that marketers take advantage of the consumer's broader media and communications ecosystem as part of the evolving role of e-mail marketing.

E-mail marketing service providers announced new platforms this week that take advantage of consumers' appetite for social media. For one, ExactTarget announced it will release a tool that integrates e-mail marketing capabilities into Twitter.

The Sidekick data loss incident is prompting questions about how safe cloud-computed data really is. Earlier this week, users of T-Mobile Sidekick phones with the Danger Inc. service lost all of their contact and system data, which historically has been backed up in a cloud system.

Holiday sales are more important than ever this year, as retailers gear up for the final quarter of this recession year. As marketers begin to plan their strategy for the holiday season, five seasoned e-mail marketing veterans share their tips on the best way to reach consumers through the inbox during the busy shopping season.

Marketing e-mail open rates were up 18.2% year-over-year for the second quarter, according to a report by Epsilon that was released October 6. The period was the fourth consecutive one that open rates increased. Fourteen out of 16 industries measured saw a jump in opens, with pharmaceuticals and financial services seeing the greatest growth, with 6.3% and 7.2% year-over-year rises, respectively.

One of the fundamental requirements of a successful e-mail marketing campaign is understanding how your customers interact with your e-mail. Yet this kind of behavioral data is hard to come by. How often do they look at their e-mail? What else is competing with your message in the inbox? Do customers view the message in the preview pane? Are they seeing images?

With social media playing a more important role in consumer communications than in the past, the inbox is now defined more broadly. It is no longer just for checking messages in one portal, but finding different kinds of messages from various places on the Web.

JetBlue Airways is working with e-mail service provider e-Dialog to power its e-mail marketing messages and revamp its TrueBlue loyalty program. JetBlue is using e-Dialog's software to create e-mail campaigns in-house. The airline is also collaborating with the agency's team on e-mail strategy, as well as technical and data services.

E-mail is as vital and important a part in the direct marketing toolkit as ever before. Competition for the scarce attention of consumers remains intense as marketers devise ways to make brand messages stand out amid cluttered inboxes. So, it is particularly vital that marketers take advantage of the consumer's broader media and communications ecosystem as part of the evolving role of email marketing.

Student Advantage, a discount loyalty program aimed at college students, has directly increased clickthroughs by 10% by testing its e-mail campaigns. The wholly owned subsidiary of The CBORD Group began regularly testing its e-mails in January after it transitioned from using an in-house e-mail product to working with e-mail services firm Lyris.