Email marketing is one of the most powerful tools that a small business can use to leverage its marketing potential. Unfortunately, it's also one of the Internet's most poorly utilized. How many times have you received an "e-blast" in your inbox, even from a trusted source, and deleted it without so much as a second glance?

While the Internet has undoubtedly improved our day to day lives immeasurably in many ways, one could also argue that it's shortened our attention spans. We've become spoiled by an abundance of readily available information; with so many options at our fingertips, advertisers need to work very hard to convince us to choose one particular product or service over another. That's why it's imperative that you target your email marketing campaign properly.

Below are a few tips to get you started.

Familiarize yourself with the rules.
As the practice of email marketing has grown and changed over the years, so has the legislation surrounding it. It is extremely important that you learn the various regulations associated with sending emails to users; gone are the days of soliciting someone's email address and then doing whatever you want with it once you've obtained it. (Besides, consumers are far more internet savvy these days; spamming random email addresses with your product is a lot less likely to yield positive results than it used to be.) Remember: you only have one chance to make a good first impression with your marketing; sending a message that doesn't appear genuine and above-board can result in the loss of a lot of potential customers.

A good place to start in order to learn the most up-to-date requirements regarding email marketing is the Federal Trade Commission's CAN-SPAM act, which came into effect in 2004 and which outlines the rules associated with commercial emails. Some are obvious, such as the necessity of giving users the option of unsubscribing from your mailings; others may come as more of a surprise (such as certain "keyword triggers", which tend to be censored by email spam filters—even seemingly innocuous words like "discount" don't usually survive the cut).

The FTC's brief on the CAN-SPAM Act is here:
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/canspam.shtm

Full text of the CAN-SPAM act can be found here:
http://www.legalarchiver.org/cs.htm

Keep it short and sweet.
Obviously you want to give your users as much relevant information as possible. Avoid the temptation, however, to include everything in your email; your aim is to get people interested in your product, and you don't want to run the risk of overloading them with information (and potentially turning them off). The average user only has a minute or so to skim over your email (perhaps even less if he or she receives it during work hours); get your point across quickly so that the user is in no doubt as to what it is you're promoting. Text-heavy email solicitations don't tend to fare as well in terms of conversion rates—remember our dwindling attention spans!

Focus on your call to action.
Never lose sight of your desired end result; if you're selling a product, make sure to facilitate the buying process. Whether it's a link, a button, or whatever works best in your overall design or layout, make your call to action stand out—and keep it above the fold, so that users don't have to scroll to find it.

Make it colorful—but don't forget accessibility.
First impressions are important—and a user is more likely to be drawn in by an eye-catching design. But as we mentioned briefly above, some users aren't able to see images or other graphics in their email messages (and some choose not to). So make sure that you allow for your message to "degrade gracefully", for those who can only view their email in text format. You can do something as simple as providing a link at the top of the message that says "If you are unable to see the email below, click here", and direct that link to a page on your website with all of the associated information.

Beware of "overkill".
Let's say you've got a product to sell. Certainly, you need to make your consumers aware of your product, and you know that email marketing is one of the most methods of reaching your demographic. But there's a fine line between promoting awareness of your business and fatiguing your user base with too many messages. Depending on the nature of your business, you should develop a campaign that maximizes your product's exposure while maintaining your integrity as an advertiser. Unless they have specifically indicated otherwise, most users will not want to receive an email from you every day. Don't risk losing subscribers by hitting them over the head with your product.