Here are the ten most important tips to ensure you're able to get the maximum return on your investment in permission-based email marketing.

1. Only send emails to persons who have requested them.

2. Only include content relevant to the type of content the person has requested.

3. Be consistent with your sending frequency. Pick a schedule, whether it is weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly and as often as you can stick to that schedule.

4. In most cases it is best to send business to business emails Tuesday through Thursday. We’ve found that the best times of the day to send are just after the start of the day around 9:30am or just after lunch around 1:30pm. It is best to avoid sending business to business emails after 4pm or on weekends.

5. In most cases it is best to send business to consumer emails either between 5pm and 8pm Tuesday through Thursday or between Friday evening and Sunday afternoon.

6. To improve deliverability add a message at the top of your emails that says something like: "To ensure receipt of our emails, please add something@yourcompany.com to your Address Book."

7. Make the From Name for your messages either your company name or the name of a person at your company. Once you choose a From Name, keep it consistent. During the split second decision subscribers make whether to open your email, the most important factor in their decision is whether the From Name is familiar to them.

8. Be sure to include both a plain text and an HTML version of your newsletter. IntelliContact Pro will automatically detect which subscribers can view the HTML message and which can only see the plain text message. If you don’t include a plain text message, around 5% of your recipients will see a message with nothing in it.

9. Don’t use all caps or multiple exclamation marks within your subject line or body. Doing this will trigger spam filters. See our Best Practices Whitepaper for additional words to avoid.

10. Build your list at every opportunity you have. If you have a retail location, add a point-of-sale sign up form. At conferences or events, ask everyone you speak with if you may add them to your list after you exchange business cards. Finally, add your newsletter sign-up form to every page on your web site. You can use the sign-up form generator within IntelliContact Pro to automatically generate the code you need.

We hope these tips have been helpful!

Ryan Allis is a nationally recognized expert on email marketing. Ryan is the CEO of Broadwick Corp, providers of the email marketing software IntelliContact Pro. For additional information on email marketing software, visit http://www.email-marketing-software-resource.com.

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