Email Marketing has been around for some time, and some are saying it's dead. Like the late Michael Jackson. However, just about every growing business is doing some form of email marketing and although it's not getting a lot of buzz or excitement, it's still a huge avenue of profitable communication for many businesses.

Keep in mind, Michael Jackson passed, but is still making millions of dollars in sales and will never be forgotten. Just like email marketing.

We are so flooded with the noise of social media that we forget about email marketing and that is a mistake.

Although social media is indeed the hottest thing "today," email marketing should not be ignored and should be a strategic part of your outreach and marketing plan for several reasons.

As Jennifer Shaheen, The Technology Therapist, said at the Atlanta Small Business Technology Tour, what is the first thing you check when you wake up? You check your email. Sure your social media networks are probably a close second, but email still reigns and will for the foreseeable future.

In certain demographics, email might not be the best media for communication, but for most mainstream business scenarios, it is.

Social media has its place for building a community or for transactions with your customers.

However, email builds loyalty over time. I like to say with email you can date your leads and marry your customers.

If you’re email newsletter is good, customers will want to get it over and over again, month after month and week after week.

Email, unlike social media, is easy to archive, forward and share with others.

Although many people are indeed using social media, keep in mind that you don’t own the communication channel, the social networks do. If they go down, your communication also goes. With email, you own the email database and can move it from email provider to email provider if needed and easily archive the email addresses and other information of your email subscribers.

Email is a great way to push your community to your social media networks. Use your newsletter to drive potential customers to your Facebook page to see videos about how your customers are using your product. Drive them to your LinkedIn group to discuss ways your products can be used. Alert customers to your Twitter account where you might post special deals.

Often times, people subscribe to your email newsletter and may never buy from you, although they want to receive your email newsletter. This is not a bad thing, if your newsletters are informative. People are going to want to keep reading your newsletter to learn. After some time, when they’re ready to buy, your product or service will be at the forefront of their mind. At times, people might subscribe to your newsletter to help them remember your product or service. Maybe they are not quite ready to buy from you “today,” but they know they might need your service later on, and want to remember how to reach you.

Email marketing is still a great way to drives sales. My daughter signed up for a regular newsletter of special deals from Rita’s, a local Italian Ice shop in our neighborhood. When the newsletter comes (which she anticipates) we print it out for a special deal. Rita’s gets a repeat customer and strengthens their brand.

Remember that every single one of your email readers is different. Therefore, it’s important to segment your readers. Maybe you send one newsletter, with special content and a custom design to young women and yet another one to your male seniors? If you want to be relevant to your audience, you’ve got to not treat them as one mass of email addresses, but understand that they are reading your newsletter for a variety of reasons and will have a variety of sales particulars.