Few marketing topics inspire as much passion as email marketing. From “it’s the ultimate solution” to “it’s a complete waste of time and bordering on illegal activity”. The fact is, your customers love email, they use it every day, and if they do it right, they will love it and respond to your email. That should be more than enough for any salesperson to spend time and money developing a professional program. However, if you need a little extra incentive, perhaps the fact that email can drive sales at a cost of literally pennies per order would do the trick.

Chances are, you are well aware of how important email is and how difficult it is to develop an effective program. Despite its promise and efficiency, it’s a volatile and complex area to navigate. However, focus on a few basic principles and activities and you will be richly rewarded. Like all good direct marketing, traffic, supply, and creativity are the secrets to success. But you need to think about them a little differently, read on for some tips on how to make sure your email gets delivered and read.

1. Actively manage your email archive.

Obviously increasing the size of your email archive is important, but managing emails presents challenges that need to be addressed. First, there are legal compliance issues that you must be prepared to manage, and your privacy policy is the foundation for managing your list. You also need to be able to understand the deliverability status of each email in your archive. An email may have been enabled but undeliverable because the address is invalid, meaning it just “bounces” when you try to deliver it. Typically, a file will have as many invalid addresses as there are opt-outs, and the result is the same… mail will not be delivered! Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are very sensitive to bounces, too many of you and they will block all emails. Therefore, it is important to keep your “bounce rate” in check. There are many elements to consider in maintaining your file, don’t let any of them slip away.

2. Zealously build your email reputation with ISPs.

ISPs are constantly trying to stop the flood of emails reaching their members. They have two tools. A total block or they will send your email to the “spam folder” just as devastating. Building your reputation score with ISPs takes time and is an ongoing process. Different ISPs have different standards that you will need to be aware of, adhere to, and develop policies around. AOL, Yahoo, and MSN/Hotmail are the top web domains, but by no means the majority. One of the main benefits of working with an email service provider is that you will have established relationships with ISPs and knowledge about their requirements.

3. Measure the delivery of your inbox.

You cannot manage what is not measured. ISPs have sophisticated spam filters that change periodically. Assume that your message will not be sent, even if it was sent last week. The combination of your subject line, content, reputation, astrological alignment, tea leaves, and other mysterious forces are used to determine if your email gets delivered. The only way to know if your message was delivered is to measure and pre-test your emails before implementing deliverability.

4. Stay predictable.

Big changes in your delivery volume or shipping patterns can alert ISP systems. Large spikes in volume on unusual days can trigger crashes, so don’t save those full file shipments in your expired customer file until the biggest delivery of the year.

5. Revalidate your file

I mentioned earlier that you should not send your invalid emails. However, it’s a safe bet that 10% or more is probably perfectly good and you’re missing out on a lot of sales. Create a schedule to regularly revalidate these addresses.

6. Images are off

Most email programs now have images disabled by default and a client will not download images until they have decided that the email is of interest. Make sure your email and main hooks are clearly understood when viewed without images and in preview.

7. Keep subject lines to the point

Subject lines are vitally important and should be highly focused and tested. Letting people know exactly what they can get generally leads to higher sales conversions than more vague teaser copy. Advancement can often get you more opens and clicks, but less on market buyers.

8. Don’t get bored

Offer a regular change of creatives and offers. Develop a library of templates that you can use to reflect the different marketing objectives of the piece.

9. One size does not fit anyone

Email makes it technically and financially possible to deliver many different personalized messages, so focus your efforts on developing targeted campaigns. For example, if a customer just had a bad experience, don’t send them your regular email. Segment them and personalize their communication.

10. Be relevant

Essentially the same as my last point, but it’s so important that I felt it worth mentioning twice. The surefire way to get someone to take your email offline is to keep sending them emails that are irrelevant to them. You should strive to find any way to be relevant and personalized, whenever you can. Be disciplined and test your concepts before implementing them. Your brightest ideas are worthless if customers don’t care, and the only way to know if your customers will is to test the concept with them.

Email is a vast and dynamic field and requires considerable effort to get right. These 10 tips are just the tip of an ever-changing iceberg that you need to continually adapt to. An “autopilot” approach will fly your email program right up the mountain. A rigid focus on maximizing the deliverability of your file is a hallmark of every great email program, as is a constant effort to stay relevant. Consistently pursue these goals and you’ll be right up there with the industry elite and brimming with profitable sales.