Anti-spam filters catch every incoming email before it is delivered into the inbox and review it. They use a scoring system to classify an email as spam or legitimate. These filters (you might have heard about SpamAssassin, SpamProbe, or SpamCombat) look for certain patterns in the message, and assign “spam points” to it based on certain criteria: words, phrases, or even colors.

Depending on what these filters find or don’t find in the message, points are added to or taken away from a scoring system. If the message score is 5.0 or higher, the filters add the *SPAM* word to the subject line of the message and the email is redirected to a “bulk” or “junk” mailbox. The lesser the score the better.

So, one of the main concerns when writing an email newsletter is to ensure that it is structured in a way that will allow it “pass” this test. I’ll go to the point and give you a few tips you may follow:

1) Check what you put in the subject line

The subject line is one area of your e-mail that is carefully examined. For example, if you type a recipient’s name in the message subject like “To: [recipient's name]“, your message will get 2.86 points because of this. If there is a lot of white space in the subject line, the email gets 2.64 points added to the score. The word FREE written in caps “weighs” additional 1.10 points.

If you put a date into the subject line, you can take off 0.48 points. And you can take one full point off if your subject contains a newsletter header!

2) Keep your message size from 20K to 50K

The size of the message does matter for anti-spam filters. The majority of spam emails are less than 20K. So, you can actually get 0.71 taken from your score if your message in within the 20K to 50K range.

3) Be wise with CAPS

If you use too many capital letters in your message, you’ll get 0.21 points added to your score. So, use them wisely!

4) Use full hyperlinks

If you use a hyperlink in your email, make sure you put the http:// at the beginning. A spam filter will add 1.28 points to your emails if you don’t!

5) Be restrained with colors

Different colors do matter too. Blue adds 0.21 points, red 0.33 points, and Magenta 0.44. The background color other than white adds 0.317 points to the message score. The Black is optimum as it won’t add or take any points off.

6) Be a welcome guest

Send your recipients an e-mail after they have “opted in” at you site, and have them confirm that yes, you have permission to send the newsletters to them. This will help in the case if you need to prove you are not spamming, and that people want to receive the emails from you.

Have your recipients add you to their address books or white lists and your messages won’t have to pass through anti-spam filters.

7) Beware of Blacklists!

Blacklists are databases of known spammers that ISPs regularly check. You may be added to a blacklist without you knowing it if one of your recipients clicks on the “this is spam” button. If you are blacklisted, contact the server provider immediately.

Test your message

Use a spam checker to test your message before you send it out to the world. A message content checker can help locate potential problems prior to distribution. It runs your receiver and sender addresses, subject line, and message content past a collection of rules. It then reports the result and tells you whether your message is likely to be filtered. Most checkers suggest a score of 5.0 will get your email sent to the spam scrap heap. One of our favorite free checkers is the Lyris’ Content Checker. Lyris ContentChecker filters your message through several hundred Spam Assassin tests to determine if it has characteristics typical of unsolicited “spam” mail. Just fill in the blanks, including your email text or the full HTML coding, and submit it. You’ll get an instant score on the next screen and a more detailed report by return email. This report highlights the factors used to evaluate your message, and may help you to make further improvements to it.

9) Don’t use the “spammers” e-mail software

Anti-spam filtering systems are aware of some of the favorite email programs that professional spammers use and they add on as many as 3 points if you send the messages with those program. Be sure to check the ISP’s “hit list” to see what email software are on it. Remember that the anti-spam filters are not perfect and they often happen to be “over protective”. They can give the “false negatives” and “false positives” results after the message analysis. A false negative is when a pure spam email gets through the filter, and a false positive is when a legitimate email ends in the “junk” box flagged as spam.

Around 150 companies now offer spam filtering software. The number of anti-spam techniques is growing and anti-spam technology is getting “smarter” too. For example, some servers (challenge systems) send an email back to the original sender and require a reply before they forward the email to the recipient. The idea behind this is that only a human can reply to a request for specific information. America Online recently announced a new spam filter that can actually “learn” the preferences of each of their subscribers.

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Author is a technical expert associated with
development of email marketing program:
http://www.glocksoft.com/em/e. Did you find those tips useful?
You can learn a lot more in
http://www.glocksoft.com/em/book-1.htm

By means of the Internet we have the possibility to connect to millions of people from around the world. And this number is growing as far as people discovering the convenience and necessity of the Internet in today’s world, where the success in business largely depends on information technology.

Companies and organizations have found the Internet an opportune place to promote their products and services. They use the strategy known as bulk email marketing, or bulk email sending, or sending advertisements and promotional letters to email users.

An essential element of successful bulk email marketing strategies is a clean list of targeted email addresses. This assumes that the list contains only valid email addresses of people who are really interested in receiving the emails from the company or organization. Otherwise, your unsolicited advertising will be classified as spam mail. Although sending out magazines and newsletters through bulk emailing is free, companies cannot risk the equity of their brands by offending people. A clean email list will help you assess the success of your email campaigns; and more importantly it will reduce the risk of breaking the anti-spamming laws.

So, how do you build a clean targeted email list? There are a few “DON’Ts” here:

* don’t generate email addresses using special tools you may find on the Internet;

* don’t harvest the email addresses from web sites;

* don’t purchase a ready made list. Such lists usually come from email service providers and agencies that conduct surveys.

Ready made lists that you will probably purchase are never validated and are full of “dead” and undeliverable email addresses. Plus, those lists are sold and re-sold many times and the email addresses’ owners are already fed up with emails from other email marketers and I have a great doubt that they will open and read your message since they receive hundreds emails every day. The email addresses that you will harvest from web sites belong to people who did not hear about you and will hardly want to receive your emails. As a return you will receive a lot of complaints from people for sending them unsolicited emails, and the banning of your email account.

There is a different way to build your clean targeted email list – subscription form on your web site. Before you start with bulk email marketing, get your web site up and running. Or, probably you already have a site where you advertise your products and services. Setup a subscription form somewhere on your web page and get others to sign up for your mailing lists with their consent. Spread the word about your mailing list through word of mouth. The beauty in this is that the list of emails will be self-screened and the database will only contain the people who are interested in your offers. Make sure you have their consent beforehand. It’s not as quick and easy as generating or harvesting email addresses but it’s a more reliable way. You won’t send unsolicited emails as you have proof that the recipient has subscribed himself to your mailing list.

Building a Relationship with Your List

When you have an email list of subscribers who have specifically agreed that you send emails to them, you have an asset that can be leveraged over and over again. You can use that email list to drive traffic to different websites and sales pages again and again and this is why you must cherish your list like an apple of your eye. The better you treat your list, the better the return will be when you want it.

To have a very profitable email list, you should simply build a relationship with your subscribers. You want them to like you, feel like they know you, feel comfortable buying from you and most importantly you want them to look forward to and enjoy reading your emails. If you can build a strong relationship with your subscribers, then you have more chances of getting them to purchase your products and services.

Here are a few tips how you can build a relationship with your email list:

1. Send emails regularly. Make sure you are reaching your subscribers at least once a month in emails or another medium. If you emailed to a list of people and had little or no response, that does not necessarily mean your audience isn’t interested in your product. Experiment with different emails, get to know which email strategy works best, and keep using it to reach your subscribers.

2. Send useful information and tips. Your emails should contain something that the customer wants. It shouldn’t be just the information about your company or yourself. Focus on giving more than just what you sell. Specific content, messages, and other targeted information that interests your customers are good to include. This is a great way to make readers look forward to your emails as they will know that they are going to receive great information from you. Provide value in your emails and don’t try to profit in some way from every one of them.

3. Send them videos of you and talk to your subscribers about things they want to know about. Videos are usually better than regular emails because they are more personal and show there is a real person giving the information.

4. Make sure your subscribers can read your emails. Although the videos, graphics, flash animations, and logos look impressive on an email, they are often blocked by email filters. Upload video, graphics, and flash files to your site and use a flat text with hyperlinks to the site. Once your recipients get to your site, you can show them as many graphics as you want.

5. Create a way for your subscribers to interact with you. This can be a forum, a comment system, an email submission area, a live chat room and many others.

Note that not every email you send has to have some way of profiting in it; just make sure the readers enjoy it, make sure they like you and they like your emails. Make your readers feel as though they can trust you and everything you say in your emails.

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Author is a technical expert associated with
development of email marketing program:
http://www.glocksoft.com/em/e. Did you find those tips useful?
You can learn a lot more in
http://www.glocksoft.com/em/book-1.htm

Many small business owners think about offering one, but sometimes have difficulties putting the entire process into place. Whether you’ve been operating an ezine for a while now, or have been contemplating starting one for your business, take a look at these tips.

1. Identify your target market and what your ezine will do for them.

Putting a signup box on your home page doesn’t give people reasons for signing up. They want to know what they are signing up for. Give your ezine a name, and have a “More Information” page that describes what your ezine offers. Provide a link to a sample or two, and consider archiving your ezines as well.

2. Don’t hide your information.

If your goal is to create signups for your ezine, make that a prominent part of your website. Tell your visitors what you want them to do. Lead them through your website, and ultimately to the action pages on your site. You should always have a page devoted to your ezine, describing it in detail, and requesting your visitors to sign up.

3. Provide the best information possible within your niche.

Thanks to the Internet, people are better educated than ever before. If you hear a term, or find an interesting phrase in a magazine, its easy to Google it, and spend a few minutes educating yourself on the newest technique. Your ezine has to go beyond this basic education.

Think of your ezine as an information piece that opens up ideas to your target market. What can you do to inspire your readers? What can you do to help them learn and apply something new? If you gain their trust by supplying useful information, they will come to rely on you for a wealth of information.

4. Stay current.

Nothing kills subscription levels more than providing the same information, over and over again. Reward your readers that have been with you from the beginning by constantly reinventing yourself.

Start by developing a formula for your ezine. Once you have a system in place, try something new and track the results. For instance, you may send a text ezine and an html ezine. Which gets opened more? Or you may play around with the amount of information provided; do your readers like quick tips, or more informative articles?

Remember, just because something holds true today, doesn’t mean you can’t retest a few months from now. People change quickly, especially online. Give your readers what they want, and create a desire for your information.

5. Ask for the referral.

Is your information of value to your readers? Chances are your readers have friends. Ask for the referral.

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Lori Osterberg is a successful author, trainer, presenter and consultant. She helps small businesses develop successful online marketing strategies, and offers many online services, including web design and optimization. Receive her FREE ezine at http://www.VisionOfSuccess.com

I’ve often talked about how marketers can reuse content for lead nurturing. If you currently are sending e-newsletters, here’s an idea for you consider.

Those who subscribe to this blog via my feedblitz e-mail notification are already familiar with the blogletter concept. You can apply this concept to your existing e-newsletter. Chad Hornfield writes on his Anything Goes Marketing blog, “How can you take your email newsletters to the next level to maximize their SEO effectiveness? Why combine it with your email newsletter with your blog of course!”

Link: Anything Goes Marketing: Where do Your Email Newsletters go? Email Heaven?.

Another useful post on the same subject by contributing writer (and Web designer) Sarah Lewis for Debbie Weil’s WordBiz Report on “How and Why to Combine an E-newsletter and a Blog.”

Sarah writes, “In short, e-newsletters aren’t as easy to create and update as blogs. That can make it harder to keep to a regular publishing schedule (ahem you might have noticed that Debbie’s publishing schedule has been a bit irregular of late). It makes sense, then, to take some of the easy-to-use technology that has made blogging so popular, and apply it to e-newsletters.”

Link: WordBiz Report: How and Why to Combine an E-newsletter and a Blog

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Brian Carroll is the CEO of InTouch Inc. InTouch is a 50-person company focused on delivering effective lead generation solutions for “the complex sale.”

Brian authors the very interesting B2B Lead Generation Blog which focuses on B2B lead generation, sales leads, and marketing for the complex sale.

1. Headlines are more crucial than ever. A cleverly crafted headline (or subject line for email) will determine whether or not your email gets opened and read. Headlines that can appeal to a reader’s desires on an emotional level will be more effective. “Insider secrets,” “5 tips you can apply now to save time/money/energy,” and “What they don’t want you to know,” are examples of titles that work because they are compelling. They offer a promise to solve a problem. They leave the reader with great curiosity. They seduce the reader to open and read the email.

2. Keywords should be placed in the headline. Use them again in the first paragraph, and repeat several times in the body of the content. When somebody sits down and types keywords into a search engine looking for information they need, will your content be found?

3. Content length should be short and to the point. Once you write your message, review it and delete as many words as possible. Ask, “So what?” to each sentence. Keep the focus on your core intention for that email message.

4. Use bulleted lists so readers can scan your points. A Jakob Neilsen survey showed that only 11 percent read an email thoroughly. Make your messages user-friendly. Oh, and use keywords in both your bullet points and your sub-headings.

5. Use stories to make it real to readers. Use your own experiences, or those of your clients. One tactic is to use your own mistakes, and then describe a lesson learned. Readers will be able identify with you and as a result, come to trust you.

6. Always write with the reader in mind. Focus on providing solutions to their pain.

7. The purpose of the content should be clear. Each ezine should have one intention only. One subject, one call to action.

8. Use statistics, testimonials, case studies, and expert references to support your point. Never forget that readers have sensitive BS antennae and a finger poised on the delete key. Don’t waste their time.

9. Make your offer clear. Be transparent, and up-front. Give them a “reason-why” and a reason to act now. Whether you are selling a product or a service, help reduce the readers’ fear of risk. Stand behind what you offer.

10. Go easy on the hype. A good tip is to read your content out loud. If it sounds like a commercial, rewrite it to sound like a conversation. Be friendly, yet professional. Over-use of power-words will trigger the delete finger.

Review each newsletter before you send it out. Use these 10 rules for writing successful ezines as a checklist and you’ll be ten steps ahead of your competitors.

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For more leading edge ezine tips go to www.coachezines.com. You can also subscribe to Newsletter Nuggets at http://www.newsletternuggets.com. To learn more about using ezines and other tools like blogs, go to www.blogsquad.biz. Patsi Krakoff, Psy. D. is writer and Internet Marketing expert with over 7 years experience marketing online.

Subscribers to your newsletter are potential customers for you and deserve to be treated like the VIPs they are. Before advertising to them in the form of Solos and other ads in your newsletter, keep a few points in mind:

1. Create trust -credibility

2. Do not over advertise

3. Do opinion Polls/surveys to find what subscribers like

4. Target your advertising

Create trust -credibility: Good content in your newsletter will do this. Info articles and tips are the main source of content. If possible use either freshly written articles or write your own. Tips are always popular, small jokes and sayings are often used to lighten up the newsletter. All these things will help your readers enjoy their newsletter and when you publish a good quality newsletter it will boost your credibility and create trust with your subscribers.

Do not over advertise: This is a common mistake with publishers. A little advertising in the newsletter and not too many Solos will make your readers more responsive and less likely to unsubscribe. Too many ads in the newsletter and sending too many Solos will cut down your subscribers and less people will actually read your ads.

Opinion polls and surveys are useful for finding out what your subscribers are interested in. Make these short and simple and always respond to those who take the trouble to fill them out. Surveys are a very valuable way of keeping in touch with your readers and builds rapport. This means you can advertise what they need and get a better response, and sales.

Targeting your ads. Advertise according to your topic. For instance if you are a marketing home business newsletter try to keep your ads in this topic, do not advertise gardening things. Your readers will expect to be offered tools, products and services specifically designed to help them in their businesses.

Fine-Tune Your Advertising To Ensure Success

Advertising your business is more than putting out a few ads and hoping for the best. Your advertising campaign needs constant testing and monitoring, to ensure success. Here are some of the ways you can do this.

1. Monitoring (tracking)

2. Testing

3. Researching publications

4. Keeping Records

Monitoring: It is critical to your advertising campaign to monitor and track all your ads. In this way you can tell exactly which ones are working and those that that are failing. This will save you a lot of time and money. Here is a good ad tracker http://www.adminder.com/go.cgi?id=cathyayb

Testing: Testing ads will ensure you have the best ad for your market, Split test 2 classifieds 1st, then take the best performer and expand into a Solo. You will save money by testing cheaper ads before you send out expensive Solos.

Researching publications: When advertising in publications do your research before placing your ad. Subscribe to the ezine/newsletter and see what sort of readers they are targeting. You will be able to assess this by the type of ads they run on a regular basis, and the articles they publish. Check out the amount of ads and how many are in the publication (less ads equals better response).

Keeping Records: Note which ezines were successful and the ones that produced little or no results. Bigger lists are not always better. Record and note all your ad results. You can use Excell for this as it provides columns, which are easy to use. Note where you advertised, how much they cost, size of list, and what success if any you had with the publication. Do not expect stunning results from a publication, that will rarely happen but even if you get a small response repeat the ad for at least 3-4 times, to properly assess the results.

When you fine tune your advertising you will get the maximum “bang for your buck.” You will continue to improve your campaign and build your successful business. Not all advertising will work and you may have only small results at 1st but always continue to advertise products/services and you will build your business and expand your clientele.

Keep these points in mind and you will ensure your maximum response to your advertising and even some sales from your readers. Your newsletter is a business tool and your subscribers will expect some advertising. However remember your subscribers are not just dollar bills and should never feel you are using them. The old cliche “look after your subscribers and they will look after you,” holds true for your advertising as well as your newsletter.

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Article written by Cathy Qazalbash

Cathy is an experienced freelance writer/copywriter and publisher of the A-Y-B free marketing newsletter

http://advertise-your-business.com

http://copywriting-for-websites.com

http://a1-newsletters.com

Here are some tips:

Your layout: it is very important to be consistent and have the same layout for every newsletter. This will add to your credibility and subscribers like it. There are a few points you should be aware of with layout. It should be simple and easy to navigate. Subscribers love a simple businesslike newsletter that they will not have to spend a long time figuring out how to find things. See our layout for guidance.

Make it interesting: Have interesting content. This will include a feature article, tips and anything else you think your subscribers will enjoy. Some publishers even run special contests. You can even include quotes of the week or jokes if you want.

Articles: While we are on the subject of content let us stop to talk about your feature article. You have 2 alternatives with this. You can go to an article bank or online library and pick up one of their newest articles about your industry or you can treat your readers to an original article like we do.

Tips: These are good and sometimes people have a whole newsletter on just tips. They are short and to the point and subscribers can read them quickly and often act on them fast. Advertising: Most free newsletters include advertising and your readers will expect this. However do not go overboard with these. Try to keep no more than 4 in your newsletter, so that it does not get cluttered. Free ads can be put out on a special link like we have so that there is better exposure and the newsletter can be read and enjoyed by your subscribers.

3rd party ads: this is something you will do when your newsletter gets a little bigger. Again try to limit these so that your newsletter does not get crowded. Always limit these ads to ones that your readers will be able to use and will be of interest to them. Response will be better and you will get repeat advertisers. Do not go overboard with Solo Ads, x2 a week is really quite enough.

Ad swaps: when your newsletter gets big enough (1000 subscribers and up) you will be able to swap ads. The best ones to swap are for newsletter subscribers you can gain a few good readers this way.

Your own ads: You can put your own ads in your newsletter and sell your goods or affiliate products.

Personalize: Always personalize your newsletter. Readers love this, it makes them feel like people not numbers and response will be better to ads and surveys.

Frequency: Try to publish your newsletter on a regular basis, once a week, every 2 weeks or at the most once a month. You will maintain contact with your subscribers in this way and have a better response.

List management: Save your time and get a good autoresponder. This useful piece of software will let you subscribe visitors to your newsletter automatically and will supply a link for them to unsubscribe from your newsletter, plus many other tasks.

Can Spam Act: always have links to unsubscribe from any mailing you send out to your readers. Plus put a legal disclaimer at the bottom of your newsletter like ours. In your welcome letter explain about 3rd party ads, as you will notice in our welcome letter. This will make your newsletter and mailings compliant with the Can Spam laws.

Now use these points and utilize this great tool for building your list and developing a rapport with your subscribers. Over time you will get a list good leads and loyal life long customers.

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Christopher T Robinson is a renowned online marketing author. He is the author of his free ebook “Effectively Marketing Your Home Business 2006″, Free Home Business Ebook, and also highly recommends these best selling online tools and software best internet marketing tools http://www.hype-factor.com

Then you also have a newsletter to get out every week, month, or quarter. Then it happens . . .

You’ve run completely out of ideas.

What do you do?

Well, first of all, don’t panic. Panicking will just make it worse. Secondly, follow these five guidelines and you’ll find yourself coming up with more fresh ideas than you can fit into a dozen newsletters.

1. Think Timely.

Is there something going on the world that you can tie back in to your business? Keep an eye on the local and national news, especially business trends. Is there something there you can use as a springboard for an article about your business?

2. Relate Your Subject to Something Else

Even a subject that has nothing to do with the focus of your newsletter can be fodder for an article. In a recent issue of DM News, copywriter Bob Bly wrote a copywriting article entitled: “Harry Potter and the Irresistible Offer”, in which he talks about an interview that J.K. Rowling did recently where she mentioned having written the final chapter of the last Harry Potter book over 15 years ago. That way, she would know how the series ends and be able to tie everything that came before into that final chapter.

Bob deftly tied this into direct mail copywriting, stating how you can follow Rowling’s advice by creating the offer first and then writing the other direct mail elements. Genius! Not only is it a great idea, but Bob was able to connect to something from popular culture-and what’s more popular right now than Harry Potter?-into an informative, helpful article about direct mail. Now you try!

3. Answer Reader Questions

If you get a lot of questions from your readers, this can make for great articles. Not getting any questions? Then solicit your readers to ask away!

4. “Invite” a “Guest” Author

I did this a couple months back in my own newsletter, when I posted an article by Ezine Queen Alexandria K. Brown. Many ezine writers put permission to reprint at the end of their articles. All you have to do is include their fully intact bio and contact information at the end. It’s free, viral marketing for them, and a free article for you. So if you’re stumped one month, just look back at the other newsletters you’ve received. Is there an article that you particularly enjoyed or identified with? Something that would be a good fit for your readers? Grab it and send it out. Just make sure you’ve gotten permission, or done whatever is required by the author for you to use their work legally.

5. “Classic” Reprints

If your newsletter has been around a while, try reprinting a “classic” article from your archives. New subscribers probably haven’t seen it, and your longtime readers would likely enjoy a refresher course. Just don’t make a habit of it.

6. Interview an Expert

In your business, you’ve doubtless made contact with other business people in fields complementary to yours. Why not interview them for your next newsletter article? People love talking about themselves and their businesses, especially if it means free advertising for them! Include their bio and website link at the end. You never know, it could lead to some joint venture opportunities!

I know it may not seem likely, but as any writer will tell you, coming up with ideas is easy, it’s the writing that’s hard! Ideas are all around us, but sometimes you just have to do a little digging to dredge them up. For example, my lack of ideas gave me the idea for this article! So just look around and take what you need from the world around you. Your next newsletter will go out on time, and will be a killer success!

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James Palmer is a freelance copywriter and co-author of the books Networking Like a Pro! and How to Overachieve W/O Overcommitting. He creates business-building ads, press releases, website copy and sales letters for a variety of clients. For a free, no-obligation copy quote, or to sign up for his free newsletter The Write Stuff, visit http://www.jamesmpalmer.com

Are you among the thousands of professionals who have a newsletter that doesn’t get results? … Do you struggle to get your newsletter out to clients and prospects on time every month?

Yes? Then maybe you are guilty of committing one or more of the following deadly newsletter sins:

1. You spend hours surfing the ‘Net, researching for an article, getting ‘screen sucked’ without any apparent value

2. You format it yourself using your Outlook email program

3. You send your ezine from your email program

4. You get business cards of people you meet at events and add them to your subscriber list

5. You manually add and delete email addresses from your list

6. You manually send subscribers a welcome message, thanking them for signing up for your ezine

7. You miss your monthly or weekly ezine deadline and send it out ‘whenever you can’

8. You only send it out whenever you have a new product or service to announce

9. Your ezine consists mainly of sales copy, with a clear call to action: buy your product

10. Your ezine is purely information-based, with interesting articles, but with no reference to your products or services, and no call to action

Okay, I’m exaggerating here, I’m sure you are more sophisticated than that!

You may already use one of the list management services such as Constant Contact or Aweber and would never think of committing these ‘faux pas’! Or perhaps you still print out and mail newsletters, and have decided to start emailing your company newsletter to save costs.

You have a list of people you’ve met at conferences and trade shows, and are not sure if it is permitted to add them to your subscriber list. Maybe you’re scratching your head wondering where you’ll find the time to do your electronic newsletter (“ezine”), so you keep putting it off.

So many questions! If you are an entrepreneur or a small business professional learning how to use the Internet, you already know how fundamental an emailed newsletter is for your online marketing.

How do you learn all this while still managing your business and other marketing tasks?

Did you know that you can send out your ezine through your shopping cart, if you have the right one?

These are some of the advanced secrets that insiders use to get better results from their ezines. Emailed newsletters are getting more complex, with laws regulating what you can and cannot do. The percentages of opened email rates are getting lower each year. Yet ezines are still a fundamentally effective way to market your products and services onlineif you do it right. If you follow best practices of successful ezine publishers on the Web, you will reap many benefits.

When your readers receive your ezine regularly, they have a chance to get to know you. You will be seen as a credible expert in your field. They will be ready to call you for products or services. They may even forward your ezine to colleagues, increasing the number of people you reach. You can communicate to a global audience. Some readers will convert to clients; others will propose joint venture business opportunities. Your business will grow as will your list of subscribers over time.

Caveat: you must do your ezine right, according to best practices. Otherwise it will become a time- and energy-consuming task instead of effortless marketing. Be wise and invest in learning how to do an ezine that gets results.

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For more leading edge ezine tips go to www.coachezines.com. You can also subscribe to Newsletter Nuggets at http://www.newsletternuggets.com. To learn more about using ezines and other tools like blogs, go to www.blogsquad.biz. Patsi Krakoff, Psy. D. is writer and Internet Marketing expert with over 7 years experience marketing online.

That means 63 percent of donors are not opening the email newsletters they’ve asked to receive.

If they’re not opening them, then they’re not reading them. And if they’re not reading them, then they’re not clicking any of the links, including the ones that lead to online donation pages. Thus, one sure way to boost your online donation rates is to boost your email open rates. One way to do that is to write good subject lines. Here are some proven methods.

1. Put your newsletter name in the subject line

With email donor newsletters, familiarity doesn’t breed contempt. Familiarity breeds trust. And trust is the single most important ingredient of online fundraising success. Donors who receive your emails need to see in a split second that your email is from a source they trust and contains a message they want.

The most predictable subject line is the name of your publication. Donors who see the publication name month after month will easily recognize it and look forward to reading each issue.

2. Put your organization name in the subject line

If you received an email today with “July 2006 E-Snapshots” in the subject, would you know for sure who the message was from and what it was about? Only if you knew the charity well. Or had a terrific memory.

If the name of your organization isn’t in the name of your newsletter, then consider putting your organization name in your subject line. This is especially vital when your email newsletter has an obscure name that only makes sense when paired with your organization name. Some examples of obscure newsletter names:

Organization: Coalition to Stop Gun Violence

Email newsletter name: Bullet Counter Points Blog

Organization: Trans World Radio

Email newsletter name: E-Snapshots

Organization: World Wildlife Fund Canada

Email newsletter name: Panda Mail

These newsletter names can all be improved dramatically as email subject lines by simply adding the name of the organization. “E-Snapshots from Trans World Radio,” for example.

3. Use donor-centered keywords

If you are still concerned that jumpy donors will mistake your email newsletter for spam~, then write your subject using words and phrases that describe your mission and the cause that your donors and members support. Here are three examples:

From: Greenpeace Canada

Subject: Driftnets, dolphins and your chance to tell us what you think…

From: Larry Cox, Amnesty International USA

Subject: Supreme Court Delivers a Victory for Human Rights

From: Insight for Living Ministries

Subject: A Message from Insight for Living

Just make sure that the keywords in your subject line, even if they appeal to your donors, will not set off spam~ filters. Phrases like “free,” “prizes” and “save,” and symbols like “!” “$” and “XXX”) will trigger spam~ filters and route your newsletter to the trash folder.

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Alan Sharpe is a direct mail copywriter and lead generation specialist who helps business owners and marketing managers attract new clients using direct mail marketing. Sign up for free weekly tips like this at www.sharpecopy.com/newsletter