1. Be sure of your recipients. In general, starting a campaign to existing customers who will want to receive your e-mail is the best place to start. Be very careful about who you send to and that they want to receive your mail. If at any time, someone requests to be taken off your mailing list, honor 100% of those requests.

2. Make it easy for recipients to opt out of the list by providing a link to a return e-mail address or a page on your web site where they can remove themselves.

3. Clearly identify yourself and help build your brand by including your name, your company’s name and the name(s) of the products you are promoting.

4. Be relevant. If you know a customer would not be interested in a particular product or item, don’t include them in that mailing.

5. Keep it short. Everyone is busy and time is valuable. The entire text of your e-mail should be no more than 500 words maximum, but if you can convey your message in less than that, do it.

6. Learn how often your customers would like to receive e-mails from you.

7. Offer coupons or special "Internet only" discounts via the e-mail. If a customer gets something from the e-mail, they are far more likely to view it favorably and not just as another junk mail message.

8. Be timely. If you sell building supplies, don’t send e-mails in May advertising snow shovels. Instead, send e-mails about your gardening specials or something else pertinent to the spring season. You might also consider using e-mail to follow up on recent purchases, such as an oil change for a car if you’re a car dealer.

9. Track your results. Hopefully you’ve followed our tips for selecting a good web site host and have accurate statistics collected and reported to you about your web site each month. If you do, and you notice one page getting a high amount of traffic immediately following a direct e-mailing, you’ll know you are hitting your target audience with good success. The important thing is to get statistics so you’ll know what is working and what isn’t.