All email marketers strive for better clickthrough rates and one of the best ways to do that is to carefully craft your email subject lines. With the right subject line, you can really grab those readers and getting them to read your email newsletter is the first step towards getting higher click rates.

Subject lines are tricky. You can slave for hours over just the right wording and still not get the results you want. That doesn´t mean it is impossible to craft a good subject line, but it can take time and patience. Also, you may not realize when you have a winning subject line, which is why it is important to test your lines. Track the results to find out which subject lines are most popular and have the best results, then try to use the same style over and over again.

For example, if you find that your readers tend to open email newsletters that have questions in the subject line, then use this technique more often. You don´t need to be a genius, either . . . you probably have a lot of emails in your very own inbox that would serve as inspiration. Which emails do you open? What about the subject line caught your eye? Use that in your own subject lines.

Once you have your readers opening your email to read, you can bet that your clickthrough rates are going to rise. And with higher clickthrough rates come higher sales. So, it is worth it to really work on those subject lines.

Spam filters are a great idea . . . until they block your emails from getting through to your subscribers. You may know that your email newsletters are not spam, but that doesn´t mean the filter does. Since it´s pretty hard to reason with a spam filter, you need to take extra care with your email newsletters, to make sure they don´t get caught up.

Keeping your email plain is possibly one of the best techniques for avoiding being mislabeled. Filters are designed to get rid of commercial letters, often more personal sounding emails are not spam, so they tend to get through easier.

Most email marketers know by now that keeping certain words out of the email content and watching your subject line is the best way to make sure the spam filter doesn´t cut out emails that are not spam. However, there are a few lesser known techniques that can also keep you in the clear.

For example, making sure that you use a white background with black text can be a big help. The majority of personal emails are black and white. Also, using the person´s name can alert a spam filter that your email newsletter is not spam. One last technique is to watch the “From” field. Using anything with the word “sales” in the email address could cause your email to be trashed.

Keeping these techniques in mind and being careful to craft your email newsletter so it is obviously not spam will help get more of your content through to your subscribers. And that, in the end, is really what matters.

The majority of lists that you come across will offer the option of list rental or purchase. There are good and bad sides to each, of course, and it helps to know which best suits your needs.

Rented Email Lists
Rented lists are one off shots. You get to use them once (sometimes a couple of times, depending on the contract) and that´s it. There is usually very little information associated with these list rentals, so you may not have the best idea of who you are sending emails to. All accuracy in the list is based entirely on how trustworthy the list rental company is, though this is the same with a purchased list, as well.

Purchased Email Lists
Using a purchased list carries the benefit of being able to create a true relationship with your readers. You will be sending to the same people over and over again (sometimes there is a time limit on the list), rather than just once to a bunch of strangers who have no idea who you are. Also, there is usually a little more info available when you purchase a list, as opposed to list rental, where each additional piece of info may be an extra cost.

Whether you decide on list rental or list buying, this can be an excellent way to expand your audience . . . just do some research ahead of time.

If you are a savvy email marketer, you probably offer new subscribers a little bonus for signing up for your email newsletter. A free ebook or maybe a month free membership to a useful site is always popular.

Do you offer anything to your subscribers after they sign up, though? This can be a great way to encourage readers to stay with you and not unsubscribe. Often, even if someone was considering leaving your email newsletter list, they will decide to stick around if you give them a free report or video series that would normally cost them more than a couple of dollars.

The key is in the value. Giving away an ebook that is already free elsewhere is not going to win you any points. However, if you are selling an ebook that you wrote for $20, email newsletter readers will be quite thrilled to have the chance to get a look at it for free. If you value your subscribers and want to continue growing your email newsletter . . . consider giving away a little something now and then to say thanks.

Running more than one email newsletter is often a necessity for email marketers, since the majority have more than one website. Several email newsletters can bring in more money than just one, but only if they are done properly. Spreading your attention out over several projects can mean you do everything poorly, rather than one thing well.

Outsourcing is the key to running more than one or two email newsletters successfully. Hiring freelance writers is an excellent way to get rid of the stress of creating good email content. These days, freelance writers can be had for pretty low prices, especially if you want to buy ten or more articles at once. It´s often a good idea to buy in batches so you always have something to choose from. Just make sure to check the writing quality to make sure you are satisfied with the work ahead of time.

Apart from the email content, you can outsource just about everything else, right down to the formatting of your email newsletters. Having an autoresponder to send out messages and keep tabs on your bounce numbers and subscribers is also a good idea and makes things far easier. Even with multiple email newsletters, you can turn out some high quality content.

We think a lot about formating when considering email design, but fonts are a major part of the design. Choosing a font isn´t quite as simple as grabbing whichever one pops up first on the list. There are a few considerations to keep in mind.

Readability. Cursive fonts translate to bad email design. They are hard to read and may not exist on the subscriber´s computer.

Size. While any font can be adjusted for size, you want to make sure the ones you choose for your email design don´t have to be huge to be read.

Tone. What message are you trying to convey? A fancy, hard-to-read font like Gigi will convey a more elegant (albeit illegible) message. New Times Roman is more formal, Arial is quite friendly.

Other email design fonts that are easy to read and best to use include Calibri, Corbel, and Verdana. Each of these makes your email design function better.

This is a very busy time of year and you have probably had at least one major campaign in your email newsletters over the past few weeks. Some email marketers will continue with the great offers and hype throughout the last week of December, but you might want to consider taking a break.

Those who celebrate in December are usually traveling or spending time with their families and tend not to check their emails. That means all those email newsletters are piling up in their inbox, not getting opened by anyone except the few who still stay on top of this sort of thing over the holidays.

Want to know a winning strategy? Wait until January 2 to send out your next installment of your email newsletter. The third is even better. Most people head back to work the day after New Year´s and the first thing they do, hung over and weary from the holidays, is look at their email. And they get overwhelmed. That delete button is just so handy, so many of them will click on “ALL” and then delete. Dumping your email newsletter in the trashcan faster than you can say “Happy New Year”.

By sending your email newsletter after the big delete, you´ll be on top of the pile and most likely to have your subscribers open your email. This is a great time to give them rock bottom offers and great information, after the chaos of the past couple weeks. So, you may want to reevaluate your Christmas email marketing strategy.

List rental is something that shouldn´t be leaped into. You want to make sure that the list you are getting is a good one, to avoid being labeled as spam. Here are a few tips to get you on the right path.

1. Check out the registration page. You want to know how people are being signed up for these opt-in lists, so seeing where they are signing up can really help.

2. Sign up for the newsletter. You can always unsubscribe later, but this is a good test to see exactly how targeted their list rentals are. You can see just how relevant the companies they sell to are.

3. Find out what permission levels are available. Can you send out solo ads? Some email list rental companies only allow emails with their brand to go out.

4. Double check the price. Does the upfront fee give you everything you need or do you have to pay extra for things like tracking and statistics?

5. Ask about bounce policy. What happens if your emails are bounced? Legit list rental companies will usually have a small number of extra emails to help replace any bounced ones, but you should be able to either receive a partial refund or a credit if too many hard bounces occur.

Getting a good list rental company makes all these questions worth while, you will have a good, responsive list at the end of it all!

This time of year is the perfect time to connect with your readers on a personal level. While it´s generally a good idea to keep your personal life out of your email content, Christmas is one exception. People like to feel good this year and receiving a personalized email from you is one way to help them feel cared about.

An HTML email lends itself to some fun holiday images and you may even go as far as designing a simple little holiday e-card. But the images aren´t the key here, the email content is.

To really catch people´s attention and make them want to stay subscribed, try sending just a holiday note. Let subscribers know that you just put up the tree and have cookies in the oven. Wish them a Merry Christmas, share a favorite holiday memory, anything to create that connection.

See, it´s all too easy to forget that there are people reading this email content and the same goes for the readers, too, it´s hard to remember that a person and not a sales machine is creating these emails. By telling them about your tree, your kids being hyperactive about Santa, etc. you will find that they connect with you better and will see you as a person. And that is the beginning of a trusting relationship. Just be careful not to overdo it, one email like this is just enough.

What helps you make the decision whether or not to read an email that appears in your inbox? For most people, email is no longer a quick medium of communication, it´s a major chore, slogging through all that spam and junk mail, just to get to the gems. And sometimes the gems get deleted by accident. That´s where the from and subject lines come in.

From Lines
Your subject line doesn´t stand on its own, people tend to take the from line into account just as much as the subject line. The majority of readers tend to delete emails that come from a company, assuming that it is trying to sell them something, which is why you will usually see personal names on emails from internet marketers, they are giving it a personal touch.

While an email from “Make Money Company” and “John Arkson” might contain the exact same content, more people will click on John Arkson´s email because it looks more personal. However, you need to be careful that your subject line and email content follows up on that personal theme.

Subject Lines
Your subject line is vital. While someone might be more inclined to click on an email from an individual, strangers are still considered suspicious by many. That´s why your subject line must reflect that personal tone. Having a sales pitch in that subject line doesn´t look good. Something more friendly, like what you would send a friend, is often the key to improving open rates.

Your email content is also quite important. If you have a friendly subject line, but your email is nothing but a product pitch, people probably won´t be opening your emails again! So, keep the tone in mind when writing all three, from and subject lines and email content.

We have researched and compiled our first annual list of some of the most useful Email Marketing Blogs …other than the Email Marketing Journal!

Please feel free to visit these blogs as they provide excellent information!
Please let us know if we missed any blogs off of this list.

1. Constant Contact Best Practices Blog
Blog URL: http://www.constantcontact.com/blogs/constant-contact
The experts at Constant Contact share practical ideas, inspiring success stories, and breaking industry news. Stay ahead of the latest trends and best practices — and boost the effectiveness of your email marketing and online survey communications.

2. Email Marketing Reports
Blog URL: http://www.email-marketing-reports.com/iland/
Public relations blog by Steven Newton turbo charges marketing, builds reputations and manages crises.

3. BeRelevant: Email Best Practices Blog
Blog URL: http://www.b2bemailmarketing.com/
Not only does this blog contain well written articles, it also has blog posts solely dedicated to providing you with lists of links that contain useful resources and information.

4. Vertical Response Email Marketing Blog
Blog URL: http://blog.verticalresponse.com/
Not only is this email marketing blog award winning, it is informative and updated regularly which is great for anyone looking to polish their email marketing skills each week.

5. Listrak Email Marketing Blog
Blog URL: http://blog.listrak.com/
This blog provides email marketing news and strategies for those who know their stuff when it comes to marketing through email. It is very well written and worth reading.

6. Email Experience Blog
Blog URL: http://blog.emailexperience.org/
A blog for the email marketing industry’s leading voices. On these pages, you’ll find the opinions and thought-leadership that’s driving the next evolution of email.

7. SilverPop’s Email Blog
Blog URL: http://emailmarketing.silverpop.com/
Silverpop CEO Bill Nussey shares the latest in email marketing strategy and news with you in his blog.

8. Emma Email Marketing Blog
Blog URL: http://www.myemma.com/blog/
An email marketing blog that shares with you recent email marketing news as well as services they have to offer in the field.

9. Get Response Email Marketing Blog
Blog URL: http://blog.getresponse.com/
GetResponse’s blog focuses on email marketing and autoresponder industry. It provides advice, marketing tips, email marketing research, and random on-topic rants.

10. Chris Baggott’s Email Marketing Best Practices
Blog URL: http://exacttarget.typepad.com/
Great blog and resource website that provides great information by Chris Baggott.Have we missed any?

Please leave a comment of other Email Marketing related blogs that might be worth reading.

How often have you sent out an email marketing campaign and not seen many results immediately after? Just because you don´t get a huge jump in sales instantly doesn´t mean your email didn´t work, there are other factors in play here.

When you send out an email marketing campaign with links to your sales page, you will most likely see a big rise in hits on the email marketing sales page. However, that doesn´t necessarily translate into sales at that point in time. In today´s web-savvy world, more and more consumers are comparasion shopping to find the best deal, so when you make them an offer, they will often take a look at it and then go learn more about the product and the going rate.

Your email subscribers will be looking at three different things in their searches:

• Price

• Reviews from other consumers

• More info

Once they have done the research, many will return and buy, if you have the best deal and the product is well-rated. This means you have a delay, sometimes of a few days, between clickthroughs and sales. So, don´t judge your email marketing campaign too early, wait a couple of days to see if your sales go up drastically, you might be pleasantly surprised.

There are literally thousands, if not millions, of email newsletters out there and subscribers are becoming more and more choosy about which ones they sign up for. A recent post by Caroline Middlebrook had some interesting thoughts on marketing via email lists.

I’ve had a think about what I like about these newsletters and why I have remained subscribed for so long:

* The frequency is only weekly. A great many lists send out postings on a daily basis or more and immediately I feel like I am being overwhelmed and it feels spammy.
* Every newsletter provides some real, solid, value. Some of them have ads as well but that does not detract from the actual content that the newsletter provides and that means that I can choose to ignore the ads if I choose.

That’s about it really - good content, not too often.

While Caroline was writing about her decision not to start a list, the post contains some interesting observations about email marketing in general. Is your email newsletter being sent out too often? There are certain emails that people are happy to receive on a daily basis, but for the most part, it can be overwhelming. Sticking to once a week is a better way to go.

Another very important point made in the post was the importance of quality. Caroline has only stayed subscribed to five email newsletters and she chose those ones because of the high level of content, proving once again that content really is the key to keeping subscribers!

E-mail is the new direct mail. A few years ago, direct mail marketers were harping on the benefits of mail outs and circulars sent through the U.S. postal system. But the rising cost of postage and paper have made direct mail costs to prohibitive for many businesses. E-mail, on the other hand, is a much less expensive alternative. Unfortunately, SPAM laws make sending out e-mail to just anyone too risky and many businesses are leery of trying it.

I won’t deny the risks, but you shouldn’t shy away from e-mail marketing just because it is risky. There is a way to make it pay for your business. It’s called permission marketing. Your job as marketer is to get the permission of your prospects to market your products and services to them through e-mail. To do that effectively, there are some things you need to lay in place before you start. Consider this:

• You need a highly-optimized website with well-written copy
• You need an e-mail marketing opt-in form on your webite
• You should have a free digital product or give something away for free in exchange for your prospect’s personal information
• An autoresponder system should be in place so that you can manage your contacts more effectively
• You must follow up with every prospect on a regular basis

E-mail marketing isn’t hard, but there are strategies that work and strategies that don’t work. I encourage you to get to know them.

Your sign up form is one of the most important part of your opt-in technique. Without a good sign up form, very few subscribers will give you their email address, making it very difficult to grow your list. There are a few opt-in techniques that can help, however.

Make the form visible. Hiding the sign up form at the bottom of the screen is not a good opt-in technique, since many people will never make it that far. Instead, put it in the sidebar, above the fold.

Let them know what they will receive. If you have a special offer (get a free ebook, etc.), mention it up front. Make sure you tell your subscribers what to expect, too, daily tips, weekly news reports, etc.

Give an example. People like to know what they are signing up for, so a good opt-in technique is to have a sample of your newsletter on your website that they can check out before signing. Don´t forget to include a sign up form on that page!

Watch your wording. Asking people to “subscribe” implies they need to pay something, even if you are giving your email newsletter out for free. Try “sign up” instead and you´ll probably get better results.

Experiment. Try different placements and wording for your sign up form to see what works best with your readers. Switch them up every week or every couple of days for month or two and then go with the sign up form that works best.

The best opt-in techniques are basically to make your sign up form appealing and visible to your readers. Make them really want to sign up by offering them a reason to.