1. Your target audience

Before you spend time, currency and effort into email marketing, you have to figure out how often your target audience will be online. An email marketing campaign is not worthwhile if people are not even online to check out your information. Find out if a market exists for your product or service. You can open your browser, type in any keyword search terms you wish and hit enter. Is there an audience? Next, use a keyword research tool to check out how often (per month) people are searching for information utilizing a general keyword and all the variations. This is powerful stuff. Knowing what and how your audience is searching for information can greatly help you determine whether you should start an email marketing campaign.

2. You're Selling What?

Since we live in an advertising world that is 24/7, it is easy to get caught up in the hype. This goes for many email marketers who choose a product because it promises a big affiliate commission but they never have a clear understanding of what they are selling. This translates into not being able to explain in your emails why people need your product or service. It's also important to remember sending people a sales letter in the disguise of an email will usually not work. Promote by providing quality information that people can utilize. Put together a small report consisting of five articles you write and give it away free to your email list. Integrate the product links into your report but use sparingly. Avoid trying to hard sell your readers. Let the report stand on its own merit while enticing people to find out more. Leave the sales pitch to the product sales page.

3. The Dreaded S-word

It is not hard to get accused of spamming these days. In the early years of email marketing you could send out unsolicited email as long as you didn't overdo it. Guess what? Some people overdid it.

According to Anti-Spam Spam-Unit, "some researchers estimate that just under 100 billion spam messages are sent worldwide every twenty-four hours as of June 2007". You cannot blame people for not wanting to open an email box full of spam but it's gotten to the point that a straight forward email can now come under the heading of spam if the recipient wishes to complain. I have seen customers sign up to an email list then forget about it. When an email arrived promoting a product, they quickly yelled spam and wanted to know how the marketer had gotten their email address.

Even if people do remember signing up to your list, they have gotten so use to deleting emails without reading that getting them to open it is a science all to itself. This is why you want to give real thought to your subject line. Stay away from extravagant promises that will only trigger the spam filters. Keep in mind that certain topics (like money) in your subject line can also trigger the spam filters. Ask a question or create a top five list on the problems and or solutions to your topic. Think of your subject line as a strong push that gets your list to open your email so they can get more useful information

If you are having any doubts about incorporating it into your online marketing system just focus on your target audience by doing some keyword research, provide useful information that helps you to state the benefits of your product or service clearly and craft an email (particularly the subject line) that won't raise a red flag with the spam filters. Email marketing is a powerful tool. Do not let any obstacles stand in your way to using it effectively.