1. Always have the email come from the same person at your end. It helps to create a sense of rapport and stability.
2. Never use a subject or title line that is misleading; always make it descriptive of what is in the body of the email.
3. On the other hand, keep it snappy. Instead of “Your November Newsletter”, use the title of one of the more important articles in your newsletter.
4. Make it clear that it is okay to forward the email to others, if the subscriber likes. This form of viral marketing can grow your subscriber list over time.
5. Always include links to your product pages in the body of the email.
6. Also include an easy opt-out link at the bottom of the communication.
7. Be sure to solicit responses and comments. People love to share their thoughts.
8. Formatting is especially important in plain text messages. Keep the attention going by using bulleted lists instead of lengthy paragraphs.
9. Stay away from using all capital letters or italicizing words, as they can be harder to view on a computer screen.
10. Watch the use of color in your emails, especially with text; lighter colors tend to be hard to read, especially on a white background.
11. Use fonts that are similar to those used in most email clients; it will make it easier to arrange the text to best advantage, especially for plain text emails.
12. Include some incentive to visit your website, such as promoting a new product or noting a new blog entry.
13. Don’t forget to include a special offer or a discount from time to time.
14. Always thank the subscribers for their time and support.
15. Before you send the emails to clients, send them to an email address of your own, with one in HTML and another in plain text. That way, you know exactly what the subscriber will see.
16. Don’t be afraid to try something different now and then. Vary texts, layouts, and other elements to see what subscribers respond to best.
17. Keep the text of the email focused; rambling will lose your audience, just as wandering text on your website will drive visitors away.
18. Use a reliable program to blast mail to your subscriber list; most allow you to review a report of successful deliveries once the job is complete.
19. Review the reports regularly, and compare them to spikes in your web site traffic, and the responses you get about specifics of the emails.
20. Used software to tabulate and categorize the responses. It will make it much easier to process them and turn them into usable data.
21. Assess the percentage of response you get. The industry standard is between five and fifteen percent. If you are getting less than that, it is time to rethink your approach.
22. If a response serves as the inspiration for an article in the next newsletter, ask the subscriber if it is okay to mention them by first name and initial. This is enough to maintain anonymity, while still recognizing their contribution.
23. Ask subscribers to submit some of their own copy once or twice a year. You may be surprised with the quality of what you receive. Reward the best one with a free ebook or other product.
24. Send out special holiday emails along with your regular weekly communications.
25. Listen to the feedback from your subscribers. It will help you refine the mailings as you go along.

So how do we make email work for us and not us working for email?

Here are my tips on the dos and don’ts of email.

* Have separate email accounts: one for business related work, a personal account for family, friends and acquaintances, and a third which is a miscellaneous account for which you can use for online subscriptions or where you have concerns about spam.

* Check your emails two or three times during the day to prevent being distracted from priority oriented tasks. If you are in the habit of checking your emails immediately after you login…STOP, this can throw your day off balance.

* Create specific folders for your emails to prevent your Inbox form overflowing. Have several act on folders: priority and non-priority, a reply folder, a miscellaneous folder and other folders specific to your work.

* Some emails should be responded to immediately after reading especially if it takes less than or up to 2 minutes to respond and then toss.

* When sending an email always have a good description in the subject line so the recipient can quickly decide on how to respond or categorize.

* When responding to an email, include and edit the sender’s email to include only important facts, this helps in streamlining the dialogue. This tip comes handy also when you decide to print a hard copy.

* As much as you can help it, avoid sending emails with attachments, as people are very concerned about viruses. Try including all information in the body of the message.

* If you are writing an email that is has a large content, write it in a document program like MS Word and then copy and paste into your email. Imagine losing an email that you have spent some time writing.

* When you are sending emails be very conscious about using Reply to All, cc and Bcc as you want to maintain healthy and integrity filled relationships with people. Do not carelessly send an email to the wrong person!

* The time to respond to an email that upsets you, is not immediately. Sometimes sleeping on it allows you to have a different perspective and the sting of the email is largely reduced.

* Have a concise signature with your name and contact details and remember to also include your website address as well.

* Remember, people first then business; so a kind and personal greeting goes a long way, for example writing in a email “have a great weekend” helps nurture relationships. As does speaking to clients and colleagues on the phone and meeting face to face.