Inspired by Bookworm SEO and his latest post, "Email Marketing for Linkbait - It's the Distribution, Stupid," I decided to add my $0.02 to the discussion about newsletters. I wrote down 7 things you should know about email marketing. It is not a complete guide to newsletters, but a few thoughts that you may find useful:

1. Be competitive. Your niche, highly specialised newsletter with a patiently built database of users can be a significant advantage over your competitors. One of the city life guides in the UK built the whole business around a big list of email addresses and receives up to 20% of traffic from emails (where the industry average is around 6-7%). With the popularity of RSS and Social Media, newsletters seams to forgotten by some people.

2. Frequency is the key. Brian from Copyblogger has recently recommended one of the websites with video tutorial about white papers. I watched it and subscribed to the newsletter. I kept receiving 1-2 emails/day. I got out quickly. The owner of the website should read "Permission marketing" by Seth Godin.

If you have a website about movies or restaurants, make sure you send a weekly email every Wednesday or Thursday so people can plan their weekends. Friday is not the best time for business newsletters, for example. Try to use the right frequency and perfect timing suitable to your website/online business.

3. Give something valuable. If you want attention, give something valuable in every email. Don't just send links to your website. Create content that people will wait for. Coupons, discounts, "secrets," tips, advice, etc. As Seth Godin would say, "It is not about YOU, it is about THEM." With an average email opening rate around 10-30%, you need to try really hard.

If you are late with your newsletter and people complain, then you created real value!

4. In/Out is crucial for your reputation. After so many years there are still many websites making the same mistake - subscribing is complicated and opting out is even more difficult. You can easily damage your reputation if you don't make it clear how to unsubscribe. It should be very simple - click on the link at the bottom and you are out. No need to log-in, change settings, etc. You want a large database of active recipients? Earn it!

5. Set a Reply-to email. Most of the time newsletters are sent from addresses like [email protected]. If you have some comments regarding the email you have just received or you struggle to unsubscribe, what you do is just hit 'reply', only to find out a few minutes later your email bounced back. This is because the email address is not active and the account has just been created for the purpose of the newsletter distribution.

Solution? When setting up your newsletter, make sure the field Reply-to is filled with an email address to the real person who can deal with queries regarding the newsletter or website.

6. Test your emails on different platforms. There are many ways people read your emails - from MS Outlook to Gmail web app. Many platforms have problems when handling complex emails, so make sure your emails looks at least very similar on most of the them. Ask your friends/readers for help or use some available solutions:

• http://www.returnpath.net/
• http://www.mailchimp.com/add-ons/inboxinspector/

7. Make sure your newsletter is spam bullet-proof. Spam detectors are quite clever, but many times your email can stuck in a Gmail spam folder or an Apple Mail Junk box. Again, ask your friends/readers for help or use some of these resources:

• http://spamcheck.sitesell.com/
• http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2006/12/14/preventing-spam-bulletproof-solution/

Need more tips about newsletters? Read about Seven Sins of Email Marketing from Digital Web.

Please write your newsletter tips or leave URLs to valuable resources in comments. Thanks for reading.