What do I mean by that?

I had swells in the numbers of subscribers. In other words I would gain a lot of new people on my list and then I would recede back from the total number. I would do another promotion of some sort, reach another high and recede again.

You know, 3 steps forward - 1 step back!

It took me a while to figure it out, but it all boiled down to my followup emails that I was sending out through my autoresponder. No, it's not the autoresponder's fault, it was mine! I really didn't know how to effectively write my emails to gain the trust of my subscribers by providing the right content in my emails.

Then I got smarter, I bought a couple of ebooks that showed me what I was doing wrong. Since then, my email list has grown without all the large swells taking place. In other words the seas are much calmer now. And yes, I do lose a few subscribers here and there, but nothing like it was before.

What was it then, that made the difference? I learned how to relate to my readers!

When you decide to have an opt-in list, it is not just a matter of sending your subscribers your promotional newsletters or catalogs.

There are many things to consider in avoiding the swells in your email list. While there are so many ways you can make people subscribe to your list, there are also some things you must do to avoid subscribers from wanting to get off from your list.

Aside from that, you also want to avoid any problems with the law and your internet service provider or ISP. There are now many laws and rules that are applied to help protect the privacy of the internet users from spamming and unwanted mails.

With the popularity of the electronic mail as a medium for marketing because of the low cost, many company’s have seized the opportunity and have flooded many people’s e-mail accounts with promotional mail.

But, with an opt-in list, you avoid this annoyance because people subscribe to the list; they want to receive the newsletters and promotional materials. They have consented to being on your list by subscribing themselves!

When sending any email to your list of subscribers, always put an unsubscribe feature on every email you send. There may be times when an email account was provided when the real owner didn’t want to subscribe or just maybe they decided they are no longer interested in what you had to offer. People do change their priorities and interest.

It is essential that you keep your list clean and manageable. Keep yourself and your business out of trouble and potential run-ins with the law and the internet service providers. Keep your operation legit and clean. Your reputation as a legitimate businessman and a legitimate site depends on your being a straight and true marketing strategist.

As a tip, here are three things to avoid when emailing your list.

1) Take notice of your unsuccessful sends. These are the e-mails that bounce. Bounced emails, also known as undeliverable messages, are those messages that, for whatever reason, were not successfully received by the intended recipient.

- There are bounces that happen or occur because the server was busy at that time but can still be delivered in another time.

- There are also bounces because the inbox of the recipient is full at that time.

- There are those bounce messages that are simply undeliverable ever. The reason for this is that it may be an invalid email address, a misspelled email address, or an email address that was abandoned and erased already.

2) Always provide an unsubscribe feature in your site and an unsubscribe link in your emails.

When someone in your list requests to be unsubscribed, always take that request seriously. If you're using a bulk email sender or your own mail server, you are going to have to do this manually.

If you are using a good autoresponder, you will automatically have a unsubscribe message and link on the emails you send. If your subscribers do not want anymore information from you, all they do is click the link and they're gone!

3) Do not provide pornographic or shocking and disturbing content in your newsletters.

It is hard to decipher the age of the recipient and many complaints may stem from these.

Stick to the nature of your site and business!

Follow these tips and it will improve your credibility so that you can have a healthy relationship with your subscribers and keep within the boundaries of what is allowed in sending mails to an opt-in list.