It seems like every time I turn on the teevee or radio, I don’t have to wait long to see or hear a commercial from Constant Contact. Every time I do, my teeth grind.

First off, let me say that they’re good commercials. Really good commercials. If I were working for Constant Contact, they’d be exactly the kinds of commercials I’d want to see on the air.

But as someone who has personally pulled the “send” trigger on around 2,000 email campaigns (give or take), I find that these spots do exactly what so many lesser commercials do: promise ease and riches when the reality is much different.

Sure, Constant Contact — and other programs like Campaigner, Newsberry, Campaign Monitor, AWeber, Emma, MailChimp, etc. etc. — enables someone to create and deliver email messaging for their business. But it’s not as simple as all that.

As a company, what’s your strategy for capturing email addresses? Are you integrating your brand messaging, both visually and textually, into your email campaigns? Do you have a strategy for how often you’ll reach out to your list? Are you segmenting that list? Are you A/B testing subject lines? Are you being conversational or hard-sell? Are you aware of which terms in your subject line will get your mail caught by spam filters? Are you observing best practices for email copywriting? Are you using email to facilitate feedback from your customers, and do you have a system in place to address any feedback? Are you properly leveraging administrative list messages? Are you aware of CAN-SPAM legislation that may affect your email marketing?

For starters.

I have to add, too, that the email I get from companies using Constant Contact pretty much all looks the same: They’re using basic content templates, and there’s that big honkin’ Constant Contact logo at the bottom — which always annoys me. After all, why let Constant Contact’s branding get in the way of yours?

And if you can’t navigate the Constant Contact system to remove their logo from your email, do you really think you’re properly addressing all the other important questions that surround email marketing?

Dear Arianna:

I read your announcement about the HuffPo-AOL deal. I read the Bloomberg article, the Mashable article, hundreds of comments Web-wide and tons more. I have a blog, so it’s obligatory I say something about the deal, even though the chance of you reading this is something approaching zero.

I don’t think anybody has any clue where this deal is headed, but one thing is for sure: There’s a lot more buzz around the AOL brand today than there’s been for years. As we all know, though, one day of buzz does not a renewed AOL make: Turning the brand around is like turning the economy around; it’s going to take a lot of time and hard work and tough choices.

So as you forge ahead in your new role as Goddess of AOL Content, allow me to toss in my $.02; after all, I was an AOL content provider back in the day when the service charged by the hour, so I figure I’m entitled to devote my blog post today to this sort of blather.

Standards, standards, standards! Many of us saw the leaked document that had details about the so-called AOL Master Plan — but this deal needs to deliver something that about more than just page views. While AOL at its best was still pretty much about the quantitative game; HuffPo at its best was very much about the qualitative game. Balance the two, but don’t skimp on quality. You’ve got Patch, which is a really interesting initiative, and you may want to think about Examiner.com as your next acquisition. But the worst thing that could come from this merger is if AOHuffPoL becomes some sort of  ‘roid-raged demon offspring of eHow and About.com. Don’t go there.

Make it easy for all of us to help. Content comes not just from your content providers, but from those of us who operate one degree of separation from those providers. Think about the countless organizations and interest groups and non-profits and passionate practitioners of countless niche interests who want to reach out to those writers and tap into their AOHuffPoL networks. Help us reach them. Help us help you.

Change AOL, don’t let AOL change you. Don’t let yourself or HuffPo be assimilated by the AOL Borg. Let’s face it: As a brand, AOL gains more by being associated with HuffPo than HuffPo gains by being associated with AOL. Don’t forget that.

There’s a time and a place for politics. You’re building a new way of publishing and interacting with content in the digital age. You’re not building an anti-Fox media empire. Don’t go there, either.

Be the tortoise, not the hare. In your announcement on HuffPo, you wrote that “this moment will be for HuffPost like stepping off a fast-moving train and onto a supersonic jet.” But don’t forget that even though you’re building something that needs to be nimble and responsive, you’re also building something for the longer term. It’s a tough balancing act, but you’re as well-equipped as anyone to make it happen. Just keep reminding yourself to move ahead on your terms, not AOL’s.

Best of luck, Arianna … you’ll need it.

1. “In this space”

2. “In this space”

3. “In this space”

4. “In this space”

5. “In this space”

No, that’s not a typo — the point just needs to be emphasized.

I’m just sayin’.

Carry on … nothing else to see here.

Taschen is a remarkable publishing house that produces a wide range of generally excellent and impressive books. Their $200 DC Comics book, for example, is a thing of beauty that’s an absolute must-own for any comics fan.

Anyway, their Web site allows you to look inside some of their books in significant depth. For example, through this link you can leaf through Guidelines for Online Success. There are sections on interface and design, technology and programming, marketing and communication — all sorts of good stuff.

Flipping through the pages, I found lots of interesting things. Like on page 32, where they say in their list of Do’s and Don’ts: “Do provide a skip intro button.” Well, in my mind that begs a bigger question: If you need to have a skip intro button, do you really need to have an intro at all? (I’d love to see actual stats from a number of representative sites as to what percentage of visitors hit the skip intro button.)

What really struck me, though, was the final paragraph of the intro to the marketing section:

Two words: Be confident! That’s right, be confident about your work. If you believe in your work — that will make them (the enemy, the client … a necessary evil) believe in you. If you show an ounce of doubt about your work, then they will leverage that doubt into a whole Pandora’s Box of problems by jumping in with both feet and telling you how to design the site. “I always liked the colour red; can you make the site red? And make the text bounce like it’s dancing?” No! You see, every client wants to be a designer but nature never blesses one person with both artistic skills and the gift of spewing forth utter BS and lies. Make sure they don’t cross the line … be strong! For you are the giant key to your own success.

Wow.

Martin Hughes and Jordan Stone of WEFAIL wrote that, and I suppose if you want to be a complete and utter schmuck of a design snob and be at war with clients constantly while you try to pick their pockets so you can do whatever it is you want to do anyway that has less to to with the client’s business and more to do with your own shallow need to rack up another award … well, I suppose that’s the way to go. For my $.02, though, I’d rather work with a designer who has confidence that he or she is working in service of the business goals of the client.

Takeaway for marketers: Your client should be a partner not an enemy. If you’re looking at your clients as enemies, you need to go find another line of work.

True story.

Back in early December, I joined a local colleague and two SEO professionals from New York to pitch new business to a global company based here in Pennsylvania. The company was embarking on a Web site redesign and knew the project would take a solid year or more. In the meantime, they wanted to shore up their SEO profile.

We spent a couple of weeks preparing for the meeting and putting together a solid buttoned-down presentation. On December 3 we went in and had what felt like a good meeting; not an A+ home run, as those meetings can sometimes be, but a solid B or B+ for sure.

The next steps were clear: We were to provide references and additional background (we did) and the company was to provide a range of data from their Web analytics so that we could in turn develop a detailed projected proposal (they never did).

What followed was several weeks of radio silence during which several members of the presenting team followed up with requests for the data. On December 30 I followed up with a lengthy email that said, in part:

If there’s been a miscommunication or an erroneous expectation of some sort as the result of our meeting, I would appreciate knowing about it. If [company name] has decided to change its SEO plans for the coming year, I would appreciate that information as well.

Having been involved in Web development projects large and small over the past 15 years for regional, national and global companies, I understand that conditions can change rapidly and misunderstanding can occasionally occur.

What followed was two more weeks of radio silence. Today I finally brought it to closure:

I’m not quite sure what the issue is over there at [company name], but I do know that if an absolute lack of responsiveness is the way you typically deal with agencies and vendors, then I have no desire to work with [company name] on any level, now or in the future. The profound lack of professionalism and respect for others’ time on the part of [company name] has been deeply disappointing.

And that’s really what it is: A complete lack of professionalism and respect. For whatever reason they evidently decided they didn’t want to work with us. There were a half-dozen company representatives in that room; I would have thought one of them would have had the balls to explain why.

I get it: Pitching new business is part of being in business. Spending time on pitches and not getting the business is part of being in business. No problem. That’s the deal when you go into business.

The other part of the deal when you go into business is that you don’t necessarily have to work with people who have no respect for others on any professional level. In retrospect, I’m glad they didn’t respond right away; if they had, I might actually be in business with these schmucks today.

Takeaway for marketers: Look at the big picture. You may be pissed about something today, but in the longer run it may be one of the best things that’s ever happened to you.