what not to do: 1. Avoid sending emails, or using data that doesn't have the recipient's name in it - personalising emails guarantees much higher response rates. 2. Don't send emails without your company details on (luckily mi|emailer does this for you automatically) 3. Avoid using lots of code - complex tables etc, and images with not enough text will increase your spam score. 4. Don't attach files - always host the files or information on your site when you can't include it in the body text of the email. 5. Never send an email without sending it to yourself first. This not only ensures that the images and formatting display properly, but also gives you a final chance to proof read it.  6. Avoid "hard-selling" by using aggressively coloured or fomatted text - Red capitals are a no-no. 7. Don't use www. for links in your emails; always use http://www. 8. Avoid sending new email templates that you haven't sent to a sample of your colleagues and friends first. This allows you to ensure that the email will display properly in different browsers and email clients. 9. Never send an email that doesn't have an unsubscribe link (luckily mi|emailer does this for you and automatically removes the person from your list for you). 10. Avoid words that could increase the spam score of your emails such as: SAVE, ££££, SPECIAL OFFER, DISCOUNT, etc - you can check which words outlook flags as spam here. contact details: When sending mails from mi|emailer you are given the following fields to complete which help to build trust from the recipient: 1. Display Email From: This is the ideal place to put your name or company name (company name is added by default) so that the recipient can easily see who or where the email is from. 2. Email Address From: This is where you would put the address of the person who would deal with enquiries, or a perform a role such as fred@mycompany.biz or sales@mycompany.biz - any replies will go to this address. 3. Email Subject: This is arguably the single most important thing to get right. Get it right and everyone will want to open your email. Get it wrong and recipient's won't be inspired to open your email or use the wrong words and mail clients will mark your message as spam. Keep it short, snappy, and targetted. personalisation: By using mi|emailer's "field codes" feature, you can insert a field code into an email that pulls data for (say: salutation and surname) from your mailing list so you can address your emails: "Dear Mr Smith" by writing text as "Dear ##salutation## ##surname##" and adding the salutation and surname headings to the relevent column in your mailing lists. layout: 1. The generally approved optimal width for an email is 600pixels 2. Using a 600px wide table to layout your email will help format it uniformly 3. Avoid very complex tables which increase your html-to-text ratio and your spam score 4. If you have enough text to get a low spam score; when it comes to content: less is often more 5. Make sure you have clear calls-to-action that entice people to click and visit your site 6. Remove barriers - try to link to the relevant page on your site, not the home page 7. Don't be afraid to repeat the same link more than once within your email, or use multiple links 8. Create landing pages on your site which are designed to catch and direct traffic from your emails 9. Avoid exaggerated punctuation, capital letters or otherwise "ramming your message home" 10. If your site supports it; append multiple links going to the same page with a ? then a number, word or letter which then allows you to track which buttons get clicked the most etc. eg: www.mysite.com/products/widget-b.htm?Buttton2 You can then track see which are the most popular buttons and decide if colour, wording, graphics, or the position on the page has the most effect on your click-through rates in your marketing emails. the message: include a brief summary of the content in a title make your message clear and snappy, avoiding lengthy and wordy blocks of text try to break the layout up into different areas to create interest - like a magazine mi|emailer automatically adds contact details, unsubscribe link, legal text, and "forward to a friend" link tips for creating your emails in mi|emailer or other editing suites: make the message clear and simple break up blocks of text with interesting layouts and images create an email that will still get your message across without the images displayed try to use 3 or less images where possible avoid uncompressed or large image files keep the width contrained to 600px wide to ensure easy viewing without distortion make your emails colourful use around three buttons and links to relevant areas of your site make small images links to your site format with bold, italic or coloured text to emphasise rather than capitals avoid underlining as this can be misconstrued as a link keep paragraphs short (2-3 sentances) Use bullet points, small images or symbols to give "at-a-glance" information Luckily mi|emailer has a whopping email marketing template library with designs based on the above guidelines, so even a novice can send emails like a pro in minutes. writing copy: Use your own words, or get someone to write an article for you. Sometimes the best approach is to find some relevant text by putting your intended subject line into a Google search and using what comes up as a basis to turn into your own words. This can help you get avoid writer's-block and get you going fast. Using quotes which back up what you are saying, reviews, testimonials etc will help to instill some trust in your reader and improve the chances of them responding positively. Keeping your content relevant to matter at hand and relevant to the subject line of the email is crucial, otheriwse the reader will quickly become disillusioned with your broadcast email and inevitably unsubscribe. Once you have gained the trust of the reader, you are in a much better position to deliver your sales message.