Nat King Cole was famous for crooning "Unnnnforgettablllllle". Many years after his passing, his daughter Natalie Cole turned it into a duet in a truly unforgettable video. If your marketing emails have fallen into the doldrums of mediocrity, it might be time to start thinking about making your emails unforgettable.

Although David Ogilvy, the genius "Mad Men" co-founder of Ogilvy & Mather advertising agency, did not live to see the day of universal email marketing, he set out a series of rules in his books of the Fifties and Sixties which are just as applicable to modern email marketing as they were in placing a full page ad in Life or a 60 second commercial on The Ed Sullivan Show.

Ogilvy stated that he hated "rules" yet his books laid out rules for proper advertising which remain somewhat equivalent to the Stone Tablets of Madison Avenue. "I am sometimes attacked for imposing 'rules'. Nothing could be further from the truth. I hate rules. All I do is report on how consumers react to different stimuli." Research demonstrates what hits a chord with your customers and what doesn't, so it pays to do the research and then most importantly structure your efforts so that they fit the research results.

The explosion of social media has created the profession of blogger-participant, a fully interactive "face person" who represents your brand's appeal as an integral part of an online community and acts as an extension to your email message. And yes, you need one.