As with most things internet related, you need to be careful and use common sense when purchasing goods and services via internet. Unlike traditional business transactions, you rarely meet face-to-face or even have a phone conversation with internet sellers. This makes it harder for buyers to gauge validity of performance claims made at a seller’s website. So, if you are considering using email marketing to promote your product or service, practice following four techniques for choosing a provider.

1. Make sure that provider is CAN-SPAM compliant.

Even though you are using a third-party to distribute your email campaign, you are still legally liable if your provider violates CAN-SPAM laws. Reputable providers will conspicuously advertise on their website if they are CAN-SPAM compliant. If they do not promote or state their compliance, you should steer clear of their services.

2. Ask for referrals.

Only deal with email marketers who are willing to give you referrals. I recommend at least 5 referrals with company names and contact information. Ideally, you will be able ask for and get a referral to a user who targeted same or similar type of prospect you are targeting. Either way, require a diversity of companies and ask that referrals are from organizations outside email marketing industry.

Be sure to follow up and call referrals. You can expect these referral sources to be some of their best customers who should able to provide you with accurate response results from their email marketing campaigns. You can also expect these results to be at high end of your realistic results, so set your expectations accordingly. Also make sure to ask how helpful, flexible, and responsive email marketing company is to special needs and complaints. This will help you to decide if they are a good fit for your company’s needs.

3. Find companies that offer email lists for your targeted market.

Amid all noise and hype on Internet today, not many people realize that all ideas and techniques you can find are petty much useless if you don't first understand your business model. In other words, even most amazing Internet marketing technique will not work if you don't understand how to apply it to YOUR business.

The 3 most popular business models are:

1) Affiliate Marketing

This is perhaps most popular one out there, since there are absolutely no barriers to entry. Almost anyone can sign-up for an affiliate program for free and start promoting product or service on Internet with hopes that someone will buy, giving them instant commissions. Affiliate marketers don't carry any risk, since they do not pay for creation of product, they do not handle customer service and they do not need any up-front investments.

When you consider that those are top three things people want to avoid, it's no surprise that almost everyone and their neighbor promotes an affiliate program or another. In fact, if there is a single reason why Internet today is so proliferated with ads and banners, it's because of affiliate programs.

Even though there are so many affiliate marketers out there, only 5% ever make any money and only 1% makes big money. The "Super Affiliates" do it very differently from all other millions; therefore they earn big checks. You can get a good idea of how to be a good affiliate marketer here: http://affiliatemarketing.sitesell.com/globalmillionaire.html

2) E-book and Information Publishing

Sitting at other end of spectrum, e-book authors need to be more disciplined in their approach to Internet marketing. Of course, they also need to invest more than affiliates do. While affiliates can get away trying to "get something for nothing" same is not true for e-book type of business.

If you're thinking about publishing and selling your own e-book online, and you think it's going to be easy, think again. You'll need to learn a lot more than affiliates are required to. You'll need to spend some amount of money getting your business up and running. However, when you do it right, payoff in this online business model is much more rewarding.

The reason why e-book marketers and "Infopreneurs" make more money is simple; they have very, very low production and maintenance costs. Anything digital doesn't cost a single cent to be produced in millions if necessary. Whatever initial start-up costs spent can be covered by selling just a few copies of high-margin e-books, and you can even recruit an army of affiliates who are more than willing to do all selling for you.