I know that some people start out by getting people to subscribe by sending an email to them. When they receive an email requesting a subscription list-owner saves that email to its own folder in his/her inbox and adds new subscriber's name and email address to his/her list.

When it comes time to send out an issue of newsletter/ezine, list-owner sends a copy to everyone on list by simply adding each subscriber to list of addresses in "To:" field. Others have progressed one step further and actually take time to send message to each subscriber separately.

At least that's one step in right direction... You MUST send each email to your subscribers as a solo-mailing. If you simply add a large amount of addresses to "To:" field in your email program, then email each subscriber receives will contain email address of everyone on your list. That's a disaster! And there's also fact that people hate mass mailings. An email like that would not be perceived as a personal letter at all.

Personalization is key! You must make every subscriber feel like letters they receive from you are to them, personally. You should include name of your subscribers in subject line (greatly increases chance of your subscribers actually opening your email), and if you can, include it in message itself as well. Or even better, include some other personalized information about your subscriber.

Now, it IS possible to do email marketing correctly by doing it manual way, like I've described here. There is one major problem though... Take a moment to think about how much time it would take you to paste your text into a new message, personalize subject line and message itself, send it to that one subscriber and then repeat same process for each subscriber you wish to send letter to.

Do you think you are ready to make that leap to full self-employment? The profit from your part-time (up till now :-) business is matching or exceeding your regular paycheck, so you think it’s time to fire your boss and make do without that paycheck. Before you take that final step to personal freedom, make sure you truly understand what you are giving up. Your employer paid benefits may cost you more than you realize. For many people it will take more than $40,000 of profit per year to replace a $40,000 annual salary.

When I talk about your employer paid benefits I’m not referring to “free” office supplies, subsidized soft drinks, or even occasional free meal at holiday party. The items that you need to consider are benefits that are going to cost you most money. Although if you really like soda I guess you might want to include this too! According to a survey published by US Chamber of Commerce in January 2004, employer paid benefits averaged 42% of an employees salary in 2002. That means you need an additional 35 – 45% more than your current salary to make up for these lost benefits.

If this number shocks you, then let’s take a look at some of typical benefits employers provide. Again, based on US Chamber of Commerce's survey medical insurance cost approximately 15% of an employee's salary. However, employers also cover cost of many other forms of insurance. They include

# Disability, # Dental, # Vision, # Life, # Unemployment, # Long Term Care Insurance, and # Workers Compensation

You might be thinking that you pay premiums for these products already. Even if you do, your employer is most likely paying lion’s share of cost. Not to mention that many times premiums you are paying are using pre-tax dollars. This means you end up paying less in taxes because amount of your premium is deducted prior to calculating your taxable income.