Email is one of the most powerful channels you can leverage when it comes to communicating with and persuading the people who are ultimately going to buy products from you.

But to build an effective email strategy for your ecommerce business, one of the first things you need to do is make sure you have a firm grasp of who it is that you're actually trying to reach. Taking time to know and understand your audience is crucial to your success now and in the future.

Every time you send an email out to your list you're creating the opportunity to connect directly and personally with your prospective customers in ways that you just can't do on Facebook or Twitter. If you're sending messages that don't resonate with your subscribers or motivate them to take action, you're wasting your time and potentially damaging your reputation in the process.

Your email marketing strategy needs to be built upon a foundation of knowledge about your audience.

In this "from the trenches" book, Internet legend Zane Colton guides you to finding and applying that knowledge.