E-mail can help you do more marketing for less money — and get better results. So says Eugene Carr, the author of Wired for Culture. He wrote this book to help the reader understand the fundamentals of e-mail marketing and to provide basic information about how to use e-mail to improve marketing efforts for arts organizations.

Mr. Carr is the developer of a nationwide arts information Web site, culturefinder.com. His company publishes a weekly e-mail newsletter with a subscription base of 50,000; he works with clients on their e-marketing plans, and sells a software package for publishing e-mail newsletters.

The basic premise of the book is that arts patrons now reside in an online world; e-mail publicity provides the opportunity to reach those patrons effectively and cost-efficiently. The author believes that the old notion that effective online arts marketing depends on having a great Web site is a myth. Effective online arts marketing depends instead on the strategic use of e-mail. He emphasizes that this type of marketing works quickly and is more cost-effective than more-often used methods, including print ads, direct mail, radio or telemarketing.

Using statistical data from several studies of arts patrons, the first part of the book looks at online consumer behavior, specifically how arts consumers view e-mail and arts information on the Web. The author also provides case studies based on actual results from arts organizations that are currently using e-mail marketing techniques.

The author includes a set of "Smart Tips for E-mail Marketing" that provide basic information to help get such a program started. These tips are followed by a chapter on how to map out an effective e-mail strategy and answers to some frequently asked questions.

This short book is written in a first-person, folksy style. There is a brief sales pitch embedded in the book for the software that is sold by the author's firm, but overall the book provides useful information about arts promotion as well as basic steps to getting an e-mail marketing strategy up and running.

For citations to additional materials on this topic, refer to Literature of the Nonprofit Sector Online, using the subject headings "Nonprofit organizations-administration" or "Nonprofit organizations-planning."