Opt-in lists can be huge and still have no real potential if they aren`t targeted. It`s important to have people who are interested in what you are offering, or you simply won`t be able to do anything with them.

One way to get a very random list is to buy lists of emails. These are seldom as targeted as a list compiled via opt-in forms on your website. If someone signs up for your opt-in list while exploring your website, it`s a pretty safe bet that they are interested in your message and what you have to offer.

Targeted opt-in lists will always give you a better response than random ones. In fact, having just 500 subscribers who are intensely interested in what you have to offer is something that will benefit you far more than having a list of 50,000 who have no interest whatsoever.

Take the time to build a targeted opt-in list and you won`t regret it.

The whole idea behind writing email content is provide valuable information to your readers and keep them reading. It`s only through repeated exposure to your message that they will begin to trust you enough to buy.

A few ways to get your email content popping:

• Use anecdotes. This starts the information off with a bang.
• Use testimonials. Let people know how others are using your products.
• Add fun facts. Using information that people can use in tidbit form really keeps their interest level high.
• Consider photos. There`s no reason not to use a few photos in your email content, just don`t make it mandatory.
• Link out. You can set up links to videos, reports and much more that will interest your readers.

Email content should be interesting and fun enough to keep people interested and make sure they keep coming back to read.

The last thing you want your email newsletter to do is drive subscribers away, but that`s precisely what many people end up doing by making some pretty common mistakes. Here they are, things you DO NOT want to do with your email newsletters!

• Sending email newsletters too often. This is a very common problem. More is less, right? Wrong. Remember that your subscribers are busy people and probably won`t appreciate receiving three or four updates a day from you. Even several times a week is too much for some.
• Using too many solo ads. People signed up to hear from you and if more than 15% or so of your emails are solo ads, they are going to start unsubscribing pretty darn fast.
• Being long winded and personal. If you are talking about yourself for ten pages before you offer a helpful tidbit, there`s no way you`ll be keeping many readers. Only the select few who enjoy that sort of thing will stick around.

Email newsletters need to be run like a business. Look for the best way to capture people`s interest and then hold it. It`s a vital part of running an email newsletter business.

To start this post, and say “old lists are bad” is just not true. An old list that was created in an opt-in fashion is a good list, but it may have some drawbacks depending on its age. The older your list, and the frequency in which you have mailed to that list, may create havoc after time. Having a list that has sat for a long period of time, might collect a lot of un-subscribes, and hard bounces when you actually mail to that list in the future.

E-mail addresses are like clothes in the sense that people have multiple addresses to suit their needs. You can’t expect an old list to have the most up to date email addresses for your subscribers. Subscribers change their email address frequently depending on a multitude of factors like job hopping, or changing ISP’s. However, with the advent of gmail this is coming to an end.

The true benefit of a newly acquired opt-in list is not just for your own marketing results, but it also helps your ESP. ESP’s gain reputation based on the delivery rates of their clients. Using a fresh opt-in list creates a mutual relationship that you and your ESP share. Good delivery, and click rates.

Justin Lavino is an Account Executive for Net Atlantic. Net Atlantic provides email newsletter hosting, discussion group hosting, and web hosting.

Do you have to be completely scheduled with email marketing? Many email marketers do very well with just the occasional email newsletter to their subscribers to let them know about a special deal or a new tidbit of information that could be useful.

While the ideal may be to aim for a regularly sent email newsletter, it doesn`t have to be that way for everyone. Some email marketers simply have nothing to say and find that it`s better to wait until they do have something.

The truth is, it`s far better to send out emails few and far between than to send out junk just for the sake of sending something out. It isn`t a good idea and can actually cause you to lose more subscribers than writing less often.

If you don`t have anything to say, don`t say it . . . it`s fine to wait a bit between emails. Most of your readers will appreciate not having an onslaught of emails every day.

You may not imagine that email design has a lot to do with the whole business of keeping readers interested . . . after all, that`s the point of writing great content, right?

While content is certainly a large part of email marketing, the email design will determine how long they stay on the page in many cases. If your email is difficult to read, you can be sure that your subscribers won`t stick around for long. They don`t want to strain their eyes for you!

It`s also a good idea to offer a format that keeps the text in manageable chunks. Rather than a solid page of text, look at the alternatives. Could you narrow the page or even offer two columns to make it easier to read? Break the sections up and add headlines to catch the attention.

Email design is important if you want readers to keep reading. Combined with great email content, you`ll find that it works very well.

Headlines are all over the place and when big news hits, you can actually piggyback off of it. Having a mention of the late Bernie Mack or any other newsworthy item in your subject line can often get people to open your email newsletter even if they are not usually steady readers.

While you should definitely not use this technique too often, it can be a good one to spark interest now and then, when you feel your readership is faltering. Here are a few tips to using headlines effectively.

• Link to the real news story.
• Make the headline fit your content
• Find something in common between your story and the news
• Ask for opinions and feedback

There are many different ways to use some of the more popular headlines in your email marketing. Asking a question like “What Do Brangelina`s Twins and Internet Marketing Have in Common?” is a great way to catch people`s eye and pull them in.

Be creative, go for top headline news and you`ll enjoy the results.

Spam has become the bane of the inbox and it`s everywhere. No one can escape the dreaded spam, but they are sure trying! That means heavy duty spam filters and safeguards are being put into place as people struggle to get control over their email.

While it`s impossible to pass everyone`s settings (some people have no unknowns allowed) without being whitelisted, that doesn`t mean you can`t give your emails the best chance possible to get through to your readers . . . people who actually signed up for your newsletter.

Knowing what the rules are can really help you play the game. So make sure you stay on top of new spam laws and know what you`re doing when you write an email newsletter.

Chances are, you`ll still end up in the spam filter on occasion, but knowing what put you there means you`ll be better able to tailor your email newsletters to avoid that problem.

Have you ever considered splitting your email content? When you have a great idea for a truly informative article, it can sometimes be very beneficial to break it into two or more parts.

The trick is to writer the first bit as interestingly as possible, to capture your readers` attention. Get them interested and prove to them that you have information they can use and then offer it over three or four emails. This is a great way to boost open rates.

When someone has had the chance to read Part One of your series, you can bet they`ll be opening the next several emails, especially if that content is truly useful for them. They`ll be watching their inbox for the next installment to put it to use.

Think about breaking your next great email content idea into parts and get those open rates up.

Holding a contest can be an excellent way to boost your opt-in list. If you need more (and let`s face it, every email marketer could use more) subscribers, then you might want to consider this idea.

First, you`ll have to figure out what your contest will be. Why will people want to sign up? Giving something great as a prize is key to making it worth their while to sign up for your email list. While many people offer an ebook, you can really attract a crowd with something more substantial like a physical prize or even a gift card.

Set up a special opt-in page for the contest and then promote the heck out of it. There are many blogs and websites that allow free advertising of these types of contests and if you form a joint venture with someone else, you can boost those numbers even more.

Contests can definitely help your opt-ins grow rapidly, so it`s certainly worth considering.

Unless you are tracking and testing results, it`s impossible to know if your email newsletters are effective. Many email marketers get into email newsletters without really thinking about this aspect of things and don`t really know whether or not their emails are as effective as they could be.

Some things to look for when judging the effectiveness of your email newsletters:

• Open rates. Are people actually opening your email newsletters? While your sales may be decent with a low number of open emails, imagine what you could do if 80% of your subscribers opened your emails!
• Clickthroughs. Do people click on the links you give, or do they just open and delete? Knowing this will help you develop a better email newsletter.
• Reader response. Are you getting emails from readers? This is a great way to figure out if you are actually reaching human beings on the other side of the email!

Email newsletters need to be tweaked and redesigned on a regular basis to ensure that they are up to date and really reaching people.

Every email marketer strives to turn out amazing email content. But if you`re writing your articles last minute, they aren`t going to be the best quality and chances are, your readers won`t be blown away.

Great email content requires some planning ahead. Even if you only send your email newsletter out once a week, take some time during that week to think about what you`re doing and what you want to write about. It can really be helpful to plan the entire month or even several months of email content out at a time, to ensure continuity.

Write down ideas as they come to you and bookmark websites and blogs that appeal to you. These are great fodder for when you are actually ready to start writing. It will help you immensely to have some material to refer to as you write your email content.

Great email content doesn`t just happen, but you can make it look that way with a little hard work!

Brick Marketing hit on this subject already, but I want to take a minute to weigh in on the value of organic lists, not only from a marketing point of view, but also from a cost standpoint. Why bring up cost? It’s free to grow lists organically! It also removes the risk in getting scammed from purchasing, or renting a list.

I can’t explain how often I receive the same phone call time again. It starts off with someone on the other end of the phone looking to send a mailing with a list they purchased from Joe Smith in Idaho. He or she says to me that they purchased this list, tried to email to it, and it was junk. Obtaining a bad list that you paid for is a quick way to lose your marketing capital. Buyers beware!

Trust is something that is earned, not something you purchase. By building an organic, opt-in list, you are building trust, not buying data. Growing your email list organically and creating a true opt-in list is essential in making your dollars work for you. See what Brick Marketing wrote about Opt-In techniques back on June 25th.

Justin Lavino is an Account Executive for Net Atlantic. Net Atlantic provides email newsletter hosting, discussion group hosting, and web hosting.

If you spend hours working on your email newsletters, writing content and coming up with fascinating tidbits, you`ll be happy to know that shorter email newsletters are rapidly becoming the norm.

People these days are busy. Their attention is being pulled in a hundred different directions and they have dozens, if not hundreds of emails coming into their inbox each day, which means if your email newsletters take more than 5-10 min. to scan and read, you are going to have difficulty keeping their attention.

Many readers will look at the email, realize it`s too long to read in the moment and make a mental note to go ahead and read it later, but later never comes with the hustle bustle of life and work and everything else that needs to be done.

Why not try this little experiment . . . send out a couple of email newsletters that are just one page long. Three paragraphs, tops. See if your readers respond better to this type of shorter email newsletter. If they do, you`ll know it`s a good way to go.

There are a few email marketing experts who know how to bond with their readers. There are some tricks to great email marketing and one of those is to make each reader feel special like you are really talking to them personally.

People react to being spoken to. Even if they know that you really are writing a mass email, the tone can imply that they are the ones in the know and your readers will respond to that. It can be a very effective technique if you know how to pull it off.

So, what exactly do these email marketing gurus do to create the illusion that each and every reader is someone special? It`s really, very simple. They write personally.

All you need to do is think of someone you know and write as if you were sending a message to that person. That`s it. Your email marketing will come across as personal and you`ll find your readers respond better to this than to formal emails. Try it. You`ll like it.