3. Read Slowly, or even one word at a time: This will help you catch double-keyed words and habitual misspellings (for example, I frequently leave off "r" in "your")

4. Clean Up Your Language. Always assume that every e-mail, no matter how confidential, will be forwarded, and eventually land on yours boss's desk!

Strike any off-color, sexist, profane, or otherwise objectionable language.

5. Cut Unnecessary Words and Phrases (or fluff) Replace phrases such as "In event that we ..." with "If we ...".

6. Give clichés ax.

7. Run Spellchecker ... ... but remember that a spellchecker will not catch words that are spelled correctly, but used incorrectly, such as use of "your" instead of you're".

Follow these tips and you'll consistently produce effective emails of a professional nature.

Mike Morgan produces a bi-weekly email newsletter, "The Moonlighting Parent", containing "real" extra income ideas for parents. No MLM. No Chain Letters. No Hype. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/moonlightingparent

Article Submissions

Remember that opt-in newsletter? Remember how discouraging it was to write articles for it when you only had a handful of subscribers? Take a break. Add a form to your site allowing visitors to submit articles. Promise them that you'll be sure to give credit. Many will be willing to submit an article just to see their name in your newsletter. If your newsletter has a really small subscriber list, offer to post articles on your site as well. Offer a free link to webmasters who submit articles. This will give you a chance to take a break from writing everything for your own newsletter.

It also gives you someone else to email. You should ask for an email address on your article submission form. The same rules apply here. If you can use article, send them an email and tell them when you plan to use it. In this case, you can feel more than comfortable to ask them to sign-up for your newsletter. They will want to see their own article; right?

Newsletter Publishers In Your Market

Speaking of your newsletter, let's strike out a little bit. So far we've been emailing people who have come to our site for some reason or another. That's great. Everything have been 100% opt-in and only by invitation.

Let's take next step. Let's send someone an email who has never filled out a form on our site, nor sent us an email. Wait! Isn't that spam? Isn't it wrong to sent unsolicited email? No; what I am about to discuss is NOT spam, nor is it unsolicited. Let's turn tables around. In last section, we talked about sending email to people who submit articles to your newsletter. That's OK, because we were responding to an email.

Was it spam when they sent you article submission? No; of course not. You invited them to submit an article to your newsletter. Guess what? You aren't alone. There are dozens (maybe hundreds) of other newsletters out there who want article submissions. Remember those articles you wrote for your own newsletter? Share them. You will be sending an email to newsletter publisher (which could lead to other possibilities). You will also have potential of being published in their newsletter. Now you have reached a whole new group of people.

Websites In Your Market With Link Directories

It doesn't stop there. If there are dozens or hundreds of newsletter publishers in your market, there are even more websites with link directories. They are easy to find. Search for your topic along with words "submit", "add url", "links" and other similar words. So if you have a site about "horses", do a search on your favority search engine for:

Horses submit Horses add url Horses links

Then either fill out their form (if they have one) or send them an email proposing a link trade. Either way, they will respond to your email. This is time to send a "thank you" note. Remember all of above tips about not being pushy and leaping for sale. Instead, remember that they are a fellow webmaster in your market. After thanking them for link exchange, mention same things you would mention to a webmaster who filled out your own form for a link exchange.

Affiliates

Don't have an affiliate program yet? You need to start one. This is where you pay other webmasters for selling your product/service. You need to have a form where they can signup.

You know rest. Ask them for their email address. When they make a sale, send them an email and tell them about it. I guarantee you that no affiliate will resent that email. Most affiliates will also be grateful for an occasional email offering tips on improving their sales.

Others

I think you have idea. There are literally dozens of groups of people you can and should email regularly. When you receive an email from anyone, you should be asking yourself how you can help that person. Then do it. If you can help that person by answering a question... do it. If you can help them by adding a link to their site... do that. Then drop them an email and let them know you did it. You never need to be afraid of spam complaints if you keep these tips in mind. You never need to be discouraged about not having enough opt-in subscribers for your newsletter either. There are plenty of people who want to hear from you. Reach out and help them.