Email content gets tough to write sometimes. This is especially true if you`ve received some unhappy emails criticizing what you`ve had to say in previous email newsletters.

When you are finding the inspiration is lagging, there are still some ways to turn out great email content that your readers will love. The best way to do this is to simply ask your readers what they want to know.

You`ll be amazed at some of their answers. First of all, readers are going to be thrilled that you are asking their opinion and many will be sending emails right back with their questions and ideas. This is a great way to forge a bond with your readers, as well.

Once you actually write some email content that covers areas your subscribers have asked about, you will likely get another wave of feedback, mostly positive. This is another good way to bond with readers and it solves the issue of what you should write in your email content.

Your email design is an important part of your email marketing campaign and should be very carefully considered. If you really want your campaigns to hit home, you`ll need a combination of great email content, subject lines, an active list and great email design.

One way to ensure that your email design is a good one and pleasing to the reader is to simply ask. Just send out an email asking for readers to respond and let you know what they think about the new design. You might even want to offer a random draw for a prize among those subscribers who jump in early.

This serves two purposes:
One, you`ll get honest feedback on your email design . . . don`t expect them to be that nice if they don`t like it!
Two, you will be making a connection with your readers. People love to give their opinion on things and the fact that you asked will probably be enough to stimulate many to write you.

Once you`ve been in contact with the reader, you have a far more responsive list which can obviously work to your benefit.

Despite the nasty connotations of the word “viral”, it has a big place in email marketing. The basic reason you would want to use viral email marketing is to get your business to grow without you doing any extra work. Having your subscribers do the work for you is a huge help and can do wonders for your business.

When you think of viral marketing possibilities, you probably think of video or ebooks. These can certainly be a great way to encourage people to spread the message for you and if you have the ability to turn out a viral video to share with your subscribers, by all means, do it. Video is a big thing in email marketing these days and readers are loving it. Also, videos tend to be passed on more than a plain email, so be sure to encourage your subscribers to share it both in the email marketing campaign and on the actual video page.

Even if you don`t have a video, you can use a podcast or even an e-report or ebook that your subscribers can pass along to their friends, family and even to their own list. The best way to make an ebook viral? Make it brandable. If your readers can add their own affiliate links to the book and give it away while earning, you can bet they will be a lot more interested in spreading your message!

Viral email marketing is worth a try. It requires virtually no extra time and given the right message and content, can go huge.

There are many reasons to use email marketing, but often we end up focusing on the money making aspect of it and lose sight of the other areas that are also vital in the world of email marketing.

Email marketing is great for so many reasons, here are just a few:

• Bonding. Email marketing lets you form a relationship with thousands of people you will never meet.
• Testing. Most email systems allow you to test and track your experiments, so you can see which offers and subject lines work best.
• Personal. Email marketing gets right into the inbox . . . it`s not a random ad flashing on a website, it`s far more personal.

Email marketing is a very valuable method of getting your products and ideas out there and if well done, it can even earn you some very good money. Take the time to connect with your readers and you`ll find that you are successful.

Not everyone is in the internet marketing business and when you start getting into niches that are quite non-technical, you may run into the problem of having readers that know nothing about email marketing. This is a blessing in disguise, really, since these readers aren`t jaded to ads and information being sent to them.

However, that being said, you may find that your non-savvy readers don`t know anything about subscribing to your email list. They won`t understand some of the things you tell them, so it`s a good idea to make sure that you offer a link or a welcome email to help them out.

Some of the areas to cover include how to whitelist your email address and how to use your emails, particularly if you are including links to other applications and multimedia. Don`t assume that your readers will know what all this is. They aren`t as educated in the tech side of things as you are, so help them out.

There are so many opt-in techniques around that it can be difficult to choose which ones to actually use in your email marketing campaign. While you can certainly use several different opt-in techniques, you will be infinitely more successful if you focus on just a handful at a time.

Choosing the right opt-in techniques will depend greatly on your type of business and your personality. Not everyone is ready to use strong-arm techniques that may work for more forceful email marketers.

Decide on 3-5 techniques that you would like to try and then implement them. This is usually best done with techniques that can be used together, like having a landing page for your email and putting a sign up box on each page.

Once you`ve chosen your opt-in techniques, go ahead and test them. After a month, drop any that aren`t working and test some new ones. This will give you the best results and you`ll learn which opt-in techniques work best for you.

Every email marketer strives to have all his or her email content read, every time, but it`s pretty hard to even get a decent open rate these days. However there is one little trick that will make sure people keep opening and reading your emails . . . and it`s extremely simple.

Include Something of Value In EVERY Email.

It is really that simple. That first email you send out will be the one most likely to be read . . . but as your subscribers sign up at different times means you don`t know which of your emails will be the first. Therefore, it just makes sense to add something of value to each and every email that goes out.

Not only is this a good way to ensure your first time readers come back, if you include value in all your email content, your subscribers will always read your emails. They want the information you are providing and as long as you are willing to keep giving it, most of them will happily read it!

Just remember, ads are not value. Your review of a product in the ad is. Make sure you give your readers a reason to read your email content.

People love to give their opinion on things and being able to get your subscribers actively participating a poll could be the best email marketing strategy you`ve ever employed. Whether you choose to have them email you with their answer to the poll, or set up the code on a special webpage and link to it, polls can be a great way to help boost your email marketing sales.

• Involve your readers. When subscribers go from being passive to being active, they are that much closer to responding to your sales pitch.
• Find out what they want. Then give it to them. How easy is that? People will tell you what they are interested in buying from you . . . all you need to do is provide it.
• Learn what`s not working. You might be surprised if you take a poll to find out what people dislike about your email marketing strategies. This is a good way to find out what you should be changing.
• Build a bond. People will feel that you do care about what they think and want, which will help create a bond between you and your readers, something that can be invaluable down the road.

These are all great reasons to try using a poll in your email marketing campaign. You could find that it increases your sales dramatically, and at the very least, you`ll have a better handle on what is going on with your subscribers.

While you may be using a email newsletters to promote your business, a personal touch can go a long way. In fact, many people like to know that there are human beings behind the actual business, so you`ll be boosting your company`s reputation in their eyes.

To really make your email newsletters work for your business, you`ll want to add a little bit of yourself into the mix. A short anecdote or just a line about what you are up to will help you connect to your audience of subscribers. That connection can make a huge difference in how they see you.

Think about it for a moment. Where would you buy if the price was the same? A completely professional shop run by robots or a shop where the salespeople are human beings? Pretty easy choice, right?

Using your email newsletters to promote your business doesn`t mean you should write like a robot. Add a touch of personality and you`ll be amazed at how much better your readers respond.

You don`t want to bore your readers with your email content, but often there is just so much to say that it can be difficult to keep it short. When you realize you`ve run on too long, what can you do? Here are a few tips on shortening your email content.

• Cut out personal info. This probably isn`t necessary and if you are just chatting about your trip to the beach, it can be taken out to shorten your email content.
• Add subheadings. This helps make the email content easier to read. People like to skim, so this will give them the important points.
• Use bullet points. Again, easy for skimming. Also all the information is more concise with bullet points.
• Take one sentence out. By removing a sentence from each paragraph (an unnecessary one) you`ll find that your content is better written, as well as shorter.

Just because your email content is long doesn`t mean people won`t read it. However, you do need to break it up with bullet points, or consider making it shorter. Easy to read is always good when it comes to email content length.

You`ve heard the rules on writing great subject lines over and over. And chances are, you pretty much stick to them in hopes of boosting your open rates. But what if I were to tell you that sometimes supposedly “bad” subject lines actually end up pulling in more readers?

Making an offer in the subject line is often considered spammy and poor taste. BUT, it can work for you if you have an established brand name. Let`s say you see an email from Office Depot offering you a 50% discount in the subject line . . . wouldn`t you want to check it out?

Other poor subject line tricks that can work include the following:

• No call to action. Sometimes the newsworthy headline is worth opening the email for.
• Boring subject line. You`d be surprised at how many dull, but informative subject lines have made it to the top 10 list!
• Too informal. While you might feel that your email should appear to be from a business, sometimes that friend feel is enough to get people to open the email.

Not all rules have to be followed all the time. Try experimenting with your subject lines and find out which ones work best with your particular audience.

As an FYI to everyone, here is a new email marketing spam law as follows:

In May 2008 the Federal Trade Commission(FTC) released its Statement of Basis and Purpose and Final Discretionary Rule (“final Rule”) on the CAN-SPAM ACT. This statement contains four new rules, and also contains some clarifications and guidance to the text of the original act in the form of the Statement of Basis and Purpose (SBP). You can read the FTC press release, and you can find the full text of the update here. The new rules go into effect on July 7th 2008.

Please visit the following link or more useful information:
http://constantcontact.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/constantcontact.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=3083

Have you ever used video in your email marketing campaigns? It`s a well known fact that website visitors love video and many website owners and blogs are starting to use video to convey information faster and in a more interesting format.

Here`s an interesting case study on using video with your email marketing.

masterIT connected the video to an email marketing campaign. This email video campaign had a 31% open rate and a 22% click through rate — far stronger results than a typical email campaign. Drake used Emma (”a way cool email marketing firm based in Nashville,” he says) to manage the campaign.

Video is far more dynamic than simple text or even audio. It allows the reader to absorb information via more than one sense and this can really be a good way to convey information that just isn`t going to make a lot of sense when written. Some things are better shown than written.

If you want to add extra interest to your email marketing campaigns, consider using links to video content on your website.

We all know that many list rental services aren`t really legit. They glean email addresses from any website or blog they can find, including forums, and then sell that as a proper opt-in list. While these businesses may not stick around too long, they are often here long enough to mess email marketing campaigns. Don`t let it be yours . . . here`s how to spot a bad list rental service.

Age: If the list rental service is too young, be very wary. Many of the non-legit sites out there are only up for a short period of time before they close and set up under a new name to continue their business.

Complaints: Do a quick search on the list rental company name and find out if there are any complaints online. If it is a scam, you will likely find more names that the service has used before.

Price: Are the prices too good to be true? This is one area where it is worth it to pay a little higher and get quality emails that you can actually use and benefit from.

Finding a legit list rental service may take some time . . . there are a lot of bad ones out there. These three tips will go a long ways toward helping you find a good service and avoiding the bad ones, though. Take the time to research a bit an densure that you are getting the best email list possible.

When email marketers are just getting started, the world of email marketing seems big and challenging. There is so much information out there that it can be difficult to process and understand what you should be trying and what simply isn`t worth your time. While you may find reading blogs and ebooks to be a very useful practice, there are times when having someone to help guide you is very useful.

An email marketing mentor is someone who can teach you what they know, and also give you a sounding board to bounce ideas off of. While your mentor certainly doesn`t have to be someone rich and famous, it never hurts! But for many, simply speaking to someone who has already been through the beginning process can be very helpful.

Finding your way through the maze of email marketing information doesn`t have to be quite so difficult and it can actually be fairly simple if you have someone who can help you out a bit and point out the best information and sources.

Where can you find an email marketing mentor? Try writing someone you respect and asking them a couple of questions. If they seem willing to help out, you can ask them if they would be interested in mentoring you. Not everyone will, some people are really too busy, but it`s always worth asking!