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E-mail is cheap, it helps you maintain relationships with the people making you money, and it allows for excellent targeting. But before any of this happens, e-mails need to travel past spam filters, get opened and get clicked upon.

E-mail and spam are widespread, and easily annoy the hell out of people. Because of this, people scan their e-mails very quickly before opening any of them. This scan takes into account the sender and the topic of course, but also things like experiences with previous mails. If the recipient has bad memories about mails sent earlier, this new mail won't receive much attention.

Use the name of your site, company or brand as sender of the mail. The subject should give a summary of what the e-mail has to offer. Limit this to 50-60 characters, and repeat your brand. Don't use higher case, and try not to use too many special characters.

Be aware of the window of the e-mail client that displays the first part of your message, and the fact your images will probably get blocked. Use the first few centimeters of your email wisely. Use an attractive layout in case images get blocked. Most e-mail clients, online and offline, block images by default.

It's not because someone reads your email something will hapen with the links inside. Make sure people respond to your message:

• Address people personally and/or make the content of the e-mail personal
• Everybody's in a hurry : use clear language
• Use short sentences and paragraphs
• Put important words in bold type
• Be modest with fonts and fontsizes
• Create trust by including your contact information

What do you want recipients to do ? Think about this "call to action". It should be visible at least once without scrolling. Include a time limit : react before, order now … Repeat the call to action in the end of your e-mail.

Don't be afraid to use several links that link to the same page. The correlation between number of links and the number of clicks is proven. Links ideally should be meaningful words and sentences, so avoid the meaningless Click Here. Separate links from normal text by using colors. Only underline words when they are links, and make sure all images link to something.

When people actually click on a link in your mail, people should arrive at a page that answers to their expectations. So only link to relevant pages, ideally with content in the recipients language. The best results are achieved when the e-mail and the landing have similar lay-out. Remove superfluous navigation from this page, use large buttons and well defined textlinks.