For this next installment of the Email Snob Interview Series, I talk email with Justin Premick, Director of Education Marketing at AWeber.
ScottWritesEverything.com: Justin, thanks for joining me.
Justin Premick: Thanks for asking me to do this interview. I’m looking forward to it.
SWE: I’d love to know how you got your start in email marketing. Tell me a bit about your background.
JP: I got into email marketing through a combination of ennui, spontaneity, and dumb luck.
I was studying/teaching Spanish literature and linguistics… and I got bored of it. So I moved out to Philadelphia with a girl I was seeing at the time and started looking for work. I started out in customer service at AWeber and learned email marketing on the job.
SWE: Given your deep involvement in the industry and the Email Experience Council, what would be your recommendations for someone who’s looking to get involved in the “conversations” of the industry?
JP: I love that the email industry has so many passionate voices! There are so many places that those conversations happen because we get so excited at the chance to talk about email.
I’d start in two places: Twitter and the Email Marketers Club. There’s a ton of good discussion and thought leadership happening on Twitter, but I think for someone new it might seem intimidating to get actively involved in that right away.
The Email Marketers Club gives you a place to get your questions answered, while Twitter lets you see what ideas and questions more seasoned folks are kicking around.
SWE: The conversations in both places can be very informative and sometimes quite entertaining. Let’s talk more about that “someone new.” If you could say one thing to someone who wants to break into the email marketing industry, what would it be?
JP: Testing: learn it, live it, love it.
… As a #2, I’d suggest they start reading/listening/absorbing as much information as they can. The amount you have to learn keeps growing every day.
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email snob interview
If there’s one great thing I’m enjoying about the Email Snob Interview Series, it’s the feeling of “We’re all in this together” that I’m getting from the different interviews. Today’s subject is no different.
In this installment, I have the awesome opportunity to talk email with Luke Glasner of Glasner Consulting and a veteran of the Publishing industry. Get ready, folks, he’s got a lot of opinions (and I love it!).
ScottWritesEverything.com: Luke, thanks for joining me. Let’s begin where I start every interview–your background. How did you get your start in email marketing?
Luke Glasner: In a real way, I had a sort of roundabout introduction to email. In 1996, I registered a couple of domain names with InterNIC (anyone remember that?) and filed an application for an online business. In those days, you had to be approved to run an online business; I was the 1,138th business to be approved on the net.
Anyway, the first two sites/businesses I started were Glasner.com and Private-ISP.net. Private-ISP.net (the ISP where your privacy is more than a policy!) was a dial-up ISP reseller that provided dial-up services, hosting, email accounts, etc.
At the time, cyberspace was the last frontier to be settled… in a way it really felt like the Land Rush of 1889 and I was out to stake my claim and make my mark–I was so optimistic. Unfortunately, the Internet wasn’t ready for me yet and Private-ISP.net didn’t go anywhere. So I graduated from UMass and turned my focus toward other things.
At the end of 2004, I began working for a publishing company that wanted to develop an online presence and generate revenues from online advertising. I launched their email marketing program–this is when I really became an email marketer. I had come full circle, but along the way I learned many valuable business lessons and found my passion in life: marketing.
SWE: That’s really interesting; thanks for sharing. Let’s talk about that passion a bit. What’s your favorite thing about email marketing?
LG: I love that email marketing provides the chance to really connect with people at an individual level and make an impact. No other medium allows the targeting, the measurement aspects, and the chance to be creative like email does.
It is this blending of science and the art of marketing that makes it so fascinating for me. The fact that it’s an ever-changing environment is what keeps me hooked.
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email snob interview
SWE: I’d love to know how you got your start in email marketing. Tell me a bit about your background.
