In 1995 it was at the height of its popularity and was easily over-taking the traditional marketing of fax (too unreliable), door to door (too confrontational) and post (too expensive).

It was only when email accounts began putting spam filters into place did email marketing wane slightly. Businesses were quick to adapt their offerings, changing headings and titles to counteract the spam filters.

As businesses evolved so did the technology, email marketers were no longer competed with just spam filters only but also email accounts, RSS feeds, social media and tech savvy customers.

According to Return Path research in 2009, filters on most mail accounts stops 20% of all commercial, permission based emails from reaching the intended inboxes. This means that even if you sign up for email marketing, Gmail, hotmail or AOL may still delete it.

The emails are disappearing because the mail accounts believe they are spam, and it does not matter that the user has agreed to receive the email.

The way for a business to counteract this is to test marketing on private mail, and to adapt titles. Anything with 'you could make x amount of money' or '10 ways to make marketing more interesting' is likely to be deleted and disappear into the ether forever.

It is not all the fault of the email account, many users cannot be bothered to unsubscribe and will set up rules to automatically throw them in the trash or send to spam as soon they come in. Don't let it get to this stage, always have something of value in your email.

As customers are becoming more aware of technology trends, email subscribers will also signup to a company's RSS feed, and they will unsubscribe if they are receiving the same regurgitated information that is on a company's website, blog, RSS and newsletter. By keeping email marketing fresh and unique subscribers are more likely to pass on the information.

The Direct Marketing Association reported that the ROI on email marketing remains is far above that of search or other marketing channels.

Social media has truly exploded in the last three years. Employment site MyJobGroup.co.uk surveyed 1,000 British workers and found that almost 6 per cent of them spent one-eighth of their workday using social media, including Facebook and Twitter.

These people aren't just wasting their working day, they are the people who are researching, commenting and reviewing. They will know if your email has false information or if someone is saying it better. Therefore it is important to know your audience, do a poll on your subscribers, ask for the tech habits and the amount of time they spend on your site versus other sites, to really understand what they are looking for.

Nielsen revealed that e-mail's share of time declined 28%, putting it in third place, while social networking, the leader, climbed 43%. However, social media does have its downfalls, many marketers are saturating twitter or Facebook with messages that aren't relevant to try and up their fans.

Email engages the customer on a more personal level, is easier to control, grabs undivided attention, is private and is familiar.

When used alongside social media, the benefits can be immense.

By monitoring social media communities for keywords about your company and products you can adapt your offerings. Social media also identifies popular topics, and influential bloggers – ask them questions, build a community but don't overtly sell through this forum as the social media community is reluctant to be sold too.

Traditionally an email offer will be based on what the company wants to sell; the social marketing effort should focus more on involving communities, to create offer as well as promoting it. According to an eConsultancy study of 1,400 U.S. consumers, 42% said they prefer to receive sales and specials via e-mail compared to just 3% who said the same for social-networking sites.

To help you adapt your email marketing strategy here are a few do's and don'ts;

• Don't just sell, people don't always want to be hit with a sales ad.
• Don't use graphic heavy emails, flash banners and animated gifs may activate spam filter. Some accounts won't display images, so always add text description.
• Don't forget to include an unsubscribe link and a physical mailing address with your message.
• Do create a snappy subject line that doesn't sound like an ad.
• Do Use HTML rather than plain text, it looks more professional.
• Do get a good list-management software to deal with subscription changes, bounces, and new opt-in subscribers.
• Do track your messages' effectiveness including, open rates, numbers of subscribers who unsubscribe, and click-through response.
• Do test different messages and subject lines to see which ones produce the best results.

The rules for email marketing has changed, the advent of social media has offered huge exposure to a larger market. Optimizing your email marketing strategy to include social media communications could take your business to the next level. Just remember to always add value!