No writer works in a vacuum, we´re all influenced by what goes on around us, and, in the case of writing, by what we read. That doesn´t mean you should start writing exactly like a big name internet marketer, but reading quality email newsletters can really help you make improvements to your own.

Email newsletters are so abundant these days that it is extremely easy to find badly written ones. Taking the time to search out well written email newsletters is worth it, though. You´ll be inspired by the email design, the writing and everything about them. This will quickly reflect in your own newsletters and you´ll end up with great emails that people want to read.

Finding well-written email newsletters is tough, but you can do it. Talk to friends and ask them which emails they love to get in their inbox. Subscribe to those.

Take a look through an ezine directory to find new email newsletters that you might not have known about before. Subscribe to the best ones.

It´s not necessary to subscribe only to newsletters that pertain to your industry or talk about email marketing. In fact, you can learn a lot from subscribing to other types of email newsletters. Look for ones that interest you and inspire you and then read them on a regular basis. You´ll see an improvement in your own email newsletters pretty fast!

Tired of writing long emails? You can definitely jam a lot of information into a small amount of email content and it is actually a better idea since people are more likely to read shorter emails. Once they realize that you are packing a lot of information into a small space, they will start opening and reading your emails on a more regular basis.

There are some tips for short emails, though.

• Make it useful. There´s no point in writing a couple lines about nothing. Fill your email content with usable information and links.
• Link to more info. Using links is a great way to make sure that your email content is at a minimum but your readers can get more information by following the links.
• Cut the fluff. In a short email, there´s no use for chit chat, so keep it pertinent and to the point.

Short emails are a great way to communicate with your busy subscribers without overwhelming them with email content, but it´s something that is very useful. Your email content doesn´t have to be more than a couple of paragraphs long, it´s quality that counts!

Take a look at your inbox. How many emails do you get from email marketing gurus? Do you even read them anymore? It seems like everyone and his dog is writing about email marketing and turning themselves into these great gurus, but the majority of them are just regurgitating what is already out there.

It´s time to start ignoring them. While not all email marketing “gurus” are bad, why not weed through your inbox and start deleting everyone who has sent you an email with the same subject line in the past week. Unsubscribe from those lists. They´re using online marketing sales letters as if they had no imagination!

To avoid their fate, your email marketing campaign should be original and unique. Is everyone else in your industry writing great long emails? Then go short. Or vice versa. When you want to promote something that offers a standard email marketing sales letter . . . rewrite it. Use a completely different subject line. Review it instead of spitting out the same email marketing crud that everyone else is.

Being different isn´t bad. Ignoring the gurus who are really just sheep isn´t wrong. Take a stand, be different and you´ll find that your readers respect your email marketing tactics far more.

List rental is often a one time event, so you really want to make sure that you are taking full advantage of it. That means making the email that you send out to your rented list really count for something.

It´s best to get the most targeted list you can with list rental. Without it, you won´t be able to write the best email possible. When you have a targeted list, you will be able to write an email directed specifically at each person and gain the maximum results.

List rental is a bit of a turkey shoot, so it´s usually best to give them an offer that appeals to the masses. Get people to sign up for your regular opt in list and you can continue to contact them with pertinent information. But, in order to do that, you´ll need something extra special to grab their attention.

Free stuff is usually a good way to start, with coupons or a discount membership being an excellent runner up. You will need to know what motivates your list rental contacts and then stimulate that in them so they will want to sign up for your email.

Writing email content on a consistent basis is often an exercise in discipline more than it is one of inspiration. But that doesn´t mean you can´t take advantage in those moments when your muse hits, in fact, you definitely want to capture those ideas!

Finding your email content muse is mostly just keeping your eyes and ears open. And being prepared. You never know when you could end up with a killer email content idea and you don´t want to miss it.

It´s a good idea to get in the habit of carrying a notebook or PDA for taking notes. But, while many people do this, they neglect to scribble the idea down in the moment and then it´s gone forever. This is the best way to lose all those muse moments and you´ll find yourself struggling to remember that great email content idea for days afterwards.

To avoid this problem, it´s very simple to whip out your notebook (which I personally find easier to write in) and scribble down the gist of the idea. There´s no need to write an entire article, just the idea and any points you think of to cover in your email content. That´s it. Keep your notebook handy and when you need to write up an article, pull it out and pick an idea.

You´ll probably be surprised at how many email content ideas you have during the day once you start actually writing them down. Often we have flickers of an idea, but ignore it because we´re busy with something else. Take a second to write it down and you´ll have more than enough inspiration to write your email content.

It´s hard to remember that spam filters were originally built to protect people from spam and junk mail, especially when your perfectly legit email newsletter is getting caught up in them! But the truth is that without spam filters, we´d be in a lot worse shape than we currently are.

Remembering that spam filters are really a good thing is the best way to avoid being resentful. Keep in mind that they are there to prevent the entrance of huge amounts of junk emails. If this were not the case, we´d be innundated with junk, but you´ll find that most spam is caught by these spam filters.

So, how is this good for email marketers? Well, it´s a great way to ensure that your readers are still reading emails! Too much spam and they will start delete anything they don´t recognize, which is definitely a bad thing for email marketers. So, the next time you´re feeling frustrated with spam filters, just remember that without them, you´d have a lot better chance of being deleted.

Many email newsletters sell ads to help eliminate costs and even to earn a bit of extra money. Should you be doing this, too?

While the decision to sell ad space in your email newsletters really depends on you, there are a few factors to keep in mind. Selling ad space isn´t an easy decision for many!

First, you need to consider if it is worth it to you to send your readers somewhere else. If you are using email newsletters for marketing, then you definitely need to consider this, since the ads you run may attract more people to them than your own links. If you do decide to go with ads anyway, make sure you keep the price high enough to make it worth your while.

The other thing to consider is whether you will simply accept anyone who pays, or if you will screen your ads. And what about solo ads? While they bring in a good chunk of money, they can also make your readers angry and you will likely lose a chunk of subscribers every time you send one out.

The impact on your readers has to be looked at when deciding to sell ad space in your email newsletters. If you feel that it will hurt your email business, then don´t do it. Otherwise, proceed, but be careful!

Are personal subject lines really effective? There is something about seeing your name on something, even an email, that makes most people want to read it. You have to admit, it can be exciting to know that someone wrote you in particular. The same goes with your subject lines, if they are personalized, your open rate will be higher.

Studies have shown that personalized emails really do get opened more often, so this is a great way to boost your open rates. It´s usually pretty simple to set up a code for this and many autoresponders actually include this as an option. You can personalize your subject line as well as your email content.

When a subject line includes someone´s name it:

• Conveys trust
• Catches attention
• Indicates a more personal approach
• Suggests personalized info
• Offers friendship

If you aren´t already using personalized subject lines, this could be a very simple experiment . . . simply make your subject lines personal for a couple of newsletters and see if your open rates go up. Chances are they will!

Email design doesn´t have to be complicated and bright to get your point across. In fact, the simpler it is, the less the email design will distract from your content. Less is more, as they say, and this really does apply to email design.

• White space. Using plenty of white space is important since it can be pretty hard on the eyes to read on a computer screen, so make it easier by leaving space for the eye to rest.
• Borders. Using borders between columns makes it even easier to read your email.
• Images. Images can add a lot to your email content, but as far as email design goes, they can really mess it up. This is because the majority of email clients now hide images for the safety of their users. This means that your carefully designed email might just end up looking weird.
• Paragraphs. Keep your paragraphs nice and short and use a space between them to keep things easy on the eyes.
• Color. If you want to use color in your email design, it´s often a good idea to go with soft colors that will make it less harsh to look at.

Email design needs to be something that doesn´t confuse the reader. Keeping it simple and clean will greatly help you and your readers will continue coming back.

Every email marketer longs for higher open rates. It´s part of the business and striving to ensure that you are appealing to your market is one of the most popular methods of boosting open rates.

A big part of the problem here is trying to narrow down your target market. Let´s say you are trying to teach people to make more money. That is a topic that appeals to many people, so it can be tough to aim for any particular market.

To make this easier and to skyrocket your open rates, you can do something quite simple. Split your list up into multiple lists.

It´s very simple. You can divide your list up into narrower target markets. If you have a subject line reading, “Earn from home and spend more time with your kids”, that will appeal to work at home moms a lot more than a generic subject line!

See if it is possible to split your list into several areas. You may need to do a survey to divide people up, but in the end it will be worth it. Nothing needs to change within the email, but having the option to change up your subject lines can drastically increase your open rates.

You know how people tend to like spicy food? Well, it´s time to make your email content spicy. Giving it that special kick is just what you need in order to get people interested in what you have to say and make sure that they continue to read your emails. Here are a few ways to spice your email content up.

• Add some humor. A laugh goes a long way toward making your emails more interesting!
• Be controversial. There´s nothing like sparking a heated discussion with your views on a major issue. Be it political, moral or something else, people rush to email content like this.
• Give some powerful advice. Nothing like telling it as it is . . . and having it work! Email content that actually tells people how to earn money or solve a problem . . . without referring them to an expensive ebook or

Email content that really grabs people is something that you will want to write on a consistent basis to keep your subscribers coming back for more and to prevent readers from opting out.

List rental often means that you get just one chance at impressing people. That´s hard to do, even if you have a pretty targeted market. But there is a great way to boost your list AND give your viral marketing that kick it needs by using list rental.

When you have a viral video or an ebook or report that you are giving away for free, list rental is perfect. You only need one go at the addresses. Offer them something for free, that they can in turn give away to their friends, readers, etc. and you´ll be able to get a lot of downloads. Each one is filled with links back to your site, plus any affiliate links or product URLs that you want to include. And, of course, lots of great information that the readers can use.

While promoting this viral content to your regular list is a great idea, that doesn´t mean it´s the only way to go. You can definitely use a list rental service to get your viral marketing out there even more. Encourage people to give the product away and you´ll get even more mileage out of it!

Email content can be a pain, especially if you are sending out several email newsletters per week. You´ll end up swamped and uninspired. But there is a great way to combat this. Just write once a month.

Once a month email content doesn´t mean you have to change your email frequency, it simply means taking a day to sit down and work hard on writing email content. You write for the entire month.

However, this doesn´t just happen on it´s own. Here are the steps you need to take in order to make once a month email content work for you.

1. Gather information throughout the month. Subscribe to Google Alerts and anytime you come across useful information that you could use, save it in a special folder marked “Email Content”.
2. Plan a day to write. This can be any day of the month. Whatever works for you. Mark it on the calendar and be prepared to work that day.
3. Have everything ready. Open up your folder. Print information if you need it. The idea is not to have to go searching for very much on the day that you spend writing.
4. Write. This is the majority of the work, but you´ll find that once you are on a roll, you´ll be able to churn out the email content without any problems.
5. Set up an editorial calendar. Decide what will be used when and set up the email newsletter for each send date. With an autoresponder, you can even set this to send on the correct date and you won´t have to think about email content until the next month.

Email content doesn´t have to be an annoying thing. Make it more efficient and practical by following these steps.

These days, email marketing seems to include using a lot of images. Many email marketers even use images to deliver some of their content and this is something that is no longer a good idea.

The majority of email clients now automatically turn images off and that means your message won´t be seen. Your subscribers have to manually turn the images on for each email and most won´t bother. So, if images are important to your email marketing . . . it´s time to look for another method of catching people´s attention.

Keeping your important information in text and not displaying images at the top of your emails is a good start to making sure that people are actually getting your email marketing message. Eliminating images all together will make your life a lot easier and will eliminate the warning box that comes up on these types of emails.

While images in the past added a lot to email marketing, their time has pretty much passed and more people are leaning toward imageless email marketing.

Offering an email newsletter to your clients is a great way to boost business and keep them updated on the latest happenings in your services or products. But how do email newsletters actually work to improve your business, especially if you are mostly sending out useful information rather than ads?

Establish yourself as an expert. When your name is on all the useful information, you can bet people will start thinking of you as the expert in your industry and everyone wants to buy from the expert.

Keep your name fresh in their minds. How often have you thought “oh, I need such and such an item”? Probably pretty often, and with that thought comes an idea of where you can get the item. By reminding people of your products from time to time, they have your business in mind.

Build trust. People are far more likely to buy from someone they feel they know or at least have heard from frequently than a person who has never talked to them. Email newsletters build trust and that can be a very valuable commodity in today´s world.

Email newsletters really are very useful in promoting your business and gaining repeat customers. If you don´t have an email newsletter set up yet, they are really very easy to do and well worth the effort.