* Key 1. Choosing the right Subject Heading is very important.

The reason the Subject Heading is so important is for a couple of reasons:

a) Your Subject Heading needs to grab people's attention and enthuse them to want to open and read your email. b) The wording of your Subject Heading can be key in your emails ability to get through spam filters. Write the wrong Subject Heading and spam filters will eat your email alive!

So, what appeals to your reader in writing a good Subject Heading?

Firstly, personalise all the time you can. By this I mean add the person's first name to the Subject Heading - this gives your email a much more personal feel and tells the spam filters that you know the person you're writing to so it's much less likely to be flagged as spam.

Here's an example: 'John, you really need to take a look at this' 'For a limited period I can offer you this, John' 'John, I think you will find this very interesting'

* Key 2. Always personalise the opening greeting with the person who you are writing to's name. Again, as an example 'Hi John'.

OK, personalising individual emails is no problem, but what if you are sending out a lot of emails to a lot of people, obviously all with different names? Then you need to make a small investment in subscribing to an automated mailing programme.

One company I'd highly recommend for ease of use and professional yet simple functionality, is Aweber - it's the company that many internet professionals use.

Aweber allows you to easily add or import a list of the details of all your contacts ie first name, last name, email, etc, and then write one email which you then send to your list and, using this software, it will personalise all your emails.

* Key 3: Make your emails easy to read:

Try to keep your paragraphs to a maximum of 4 or 5 lines, to make reading the email easy on the eyes, and not so scary when people quickly scroll it.

If your email is full of big blocks of text, your recipient will simple close it and move on. And key points should be made on single lines, in their own paragraph.

* Key 4: Write your 'Sales Copy' in the way you would normally 'chat' to someone:

'Sales Copy' is the term used to describe the text in your email that is aiming to encourage a sale. People like to do business with people they know, so write your emails in an informal (yet professional) way, writing as you would speak.

OK, yes I know your English teacher would have a heart-attack over the bad use of grammar but you are not writing to win any literary awards - you are writing to motivate someone towards a sale, so write to them in a way that suggests you are a friend or colleague.

We have only just touched the surface on writing powerful, effective emails. I will cover more in future articles.