And remember not exceed 40 characters when developing your subject line.

Step #5 - Remind your subscribers where and when they opted-in

If you do not e-mail your subscribers very often, say once every fortnight, it would be good to remind them where and when they opted-in, right at top of your e-mail.

In e-mail marketing, popular axiom, "Out of Sight, Out of Mind" bears much truth.

Don't expect your subscribers to remember where and when they opted-in to receive information from you if you're not in frequent contact with them.

If they can't recall when they opted-in to your list and you fail remind them - don't be surprised if they scream "SPAM"!

Step #6 - Provide an unsubscribe link

In e-mail marketing, you should never ever hold anyone hostage.

You'd rather settle for happy unsubscribers than angry subscribers, right?

So, provide your readers with an easy and convenient method to unsubscribe.

They'll sleep more soundly at night and so will you.

Step # 7 - Check and test your e-mail

You've spent a great deal of time crafting your e-mail.

So it is a good practice to check through your e-mail to make sure you do not overlook following: 1) Spell check your e-mail 2) SPAM check your e-mail 3) Test all e-mail links 4) Double-check mail merge codes (if any) e.g. $firstname$ vs. {FIRSTNAME} (especially if you're sending out same e-mail using different autoresponder software)

Step #8 - Use fixed-pitch font and proper formatting

Use a fixed-pitch font like Courier and perform a hard carriage return at end of each line at 60 characters to avoid formatting problems.

Step #9 - Track all e-mail links

This is an often over-looked step. Tracking your e-mail links will allow you to gain valuable insights and discover what works and what doesn't.

Use tracking information to refine your future e-mail marketing campaigns.

Step #10 - KISS (Keep It Simple and Short)

Lastly, keep your e-mails simple and short.

The more e-mail content you create, higher chance of triggering SPAM filters.

If possible, use e-mail marketing to Pre-Sell, not Sell.

Follow these 10 steps in your next e-mail marketing campaign and watch your campaign results skyrocket!

I was under impression we were already paying to receive email... and last time I checked, there was no place to put a stamp!

Okay, even if we make it past that and we accept argument that legitimate emailers should have to pay a fee in order to get on that big "whitelist in sky" somewhere... there are still two very important considerations here:

1. First, what about little guy who starts doing really well?

You know, small newsletter publisher who puts out a great ezine or fr-e report or whatever, and gets a lot of subscribers and then wants to broadcast email to them on a regular basis?

Let's say they start making $20,000.00 a year from their ezine... are they now supposed to shell out 6-10% of their earnings in order to get their messages through? (And that's if they never get a fine!)

Do they have to be penalized for being successful?

Apparently so if this system gains widespread acceptance by all big ISP's and email service providers!

2. Second, what about high potential for abuse at hands of unethical competitors and just plain jerks that populate Internet!

I know it might seem hard to believe, but there are psychos out there who will sign up for a bunch of free email accounts just so they can make trouble.

(This is not paranoia! I had a user who signed up, definitely opted-in from my website, had emails routed through a SpamCop address so I got blacklisted by SpamCop until I could get it straightened out. Oh, and guess who owns SpamCop... IronPort, that's who!)

Now, some idiot making waves with 100 email accounts won't put a dent in pockets of most big players in email arena... for them it'll just be a business expense.

But for case of "little" guy, fighting that potential abuse and those fees could seriously cripple and even kill a fledgling enterprise... and that, in my opinion, is a serious problem.

In my opinion, all this is going to do is cut out little guy and make it easier for big companies to email hell out of rest of us.

A small newsletter publisher will find it cost-prohibitive to pay for service, and some giant company will just keep pumping email out because they have staff and resources to fight inevitable complaints.

And let's face it, if a big company is paying a $10,000.00 a year licensing fee plus posting a $4,000.00 bond, how aggressive do you think IronTrust people will really be to get rid of them?

In my opinion, not very.

In conclusion: Despite my ranting, I actually think this is a step in right direction (albeit a wobbly, drunken, and inconvenient step).

Something has to be done to fight spam.

However, at this point, this whole system has (in my opinion) too many unanswered questions, especially for us little guys.

Namely:

~ Do I really need to do this if I'm a little guy operating and growing a newsletter?

~ What happens if I get unfounded spam complaints?

~ At what level does it make financial sense for me to do this?

~ What if my newsletter isn't a big profit generator... am I supposed to give up revenue I do create just to get my emails through?

To their apparent credit, Yahoo! is also trying to pioneer a solution, but this one doesn't appear (at this point) like it will cost publishers or subscribers any money (and I like sound of that). http://antispam.yahoo.com/domainkeys

But with so much at stake (on both sides), this issue is a far cry from any satisfactory resolution.

Stay tuned for further updates as events warrant...