In a Pew Research study performed in December of 2010, adults were asked what activities they participated in while online.  An overwhelming 92% said that they send and read email. More than social networking, more than researching and conversing about a hobby, more than checking the weather – Email. In fact in 2010 107 trillion emails were sent. That’s 33,900,000 emails per second. Email is such a part of my life that even though my phone automatically checks for new email every minute I still navigate to Outlook and Gmail every time I log into my computer.

The greatest question any business can ask itself is, “how can I best leverage email for marketing?” which is a fantastic question, but one that also causes a great deal more questions. What about SPAM? How often do I send email? Who do I send them to?

Email Marketing can be the most frustrating form of Internet Marketing, but if done right, the most rewarding. So here are five ways you can boost your Email Marketing efforts:

1. Make it easy to sign-up: Put a single sign-up form or link to your sign-up form on every page of your website. At Pinnacle we put the entire form in the footer of our website so it’s on every page. For better results place your form or link in the top 750 pixels of your page.
2. Give them something to look forward to: Save some of your best content for your newsletter. Remember, the reason they are on your email list is because they requested to receive updates from you. Give them something worth reading.
3. Ask people to read: Use other channels of influence to increase your subscribers. Also, post links to your newsletter on Twitter and Facebook.
4. Send often, but not annoyingly often:  The average person cleans out their inbox every 12-15 days. Sending two newsletters per month is often ideal. Test your list to see how often you should send messages to your followers.
5. Design a beautiful email:  Use an HTML design for your email template. A newsletter that is all text is boring and hard to read. You need to grab the reader’s eyes immediately when they look at your message.

These are just some basic steps, but if you follow them it will increase the quality of your email marketing efforts.