By Managing Editor Anne Holland

Welcome to the worst email virus week apparently in history. How will it affect marketers? I popped out a special Four-Point Alert to our MarketingSherpa newsletter readers yesterday. It's very quick, and I hope fairly helpful:
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/sample.cfm?contentID=243


One reader emailed back, "Yes, but should I stop mailing entirely until this is over?"

My answer is mixed. If you're running a once-in-a-blue-moon campaign, such as a launch or an unusually expensive promotion, then you may want to hold. However, experts predict this virus will stick around until Sept 10th, so that's quite a while to hold regular mailings.

Database marketing gurus say that companies who hold mailings because of near-term situations, rarely think through their actions in terms of long-reaching sales. Each new customer you wait to acquire is also a future profit you put on hold.

Even if responses are down, you still have to feed that acquisition hopper to fuel sales way down the pike.

My recommendation: If you're renting a list, consider holding names that are more likely to be messed up by the virus, such as Hotmail, MSN email and Yahoo email names with small mailboxes that are too clogged already.