When writing your copy throw everything you learned in English 101 out the window.

1. Personalize
Since most services let you use personalization – do it! There’s nothing better for a person to see their name.

2. Write just like you talk
Use plain, easy to understand English. Nobody cares if you can use xenophobia and ostentatious in a sentence. Write almost like you’re talking to a buddy over a beer. So that means use contractions. Be friendly and personable in your writing.

3. Put passion into your email
Since you won’t have the luxury of seeing your prospect eye-to-eye to gauge their reactions you need to put extra passion into your message. Even if you think you are overdoing it when you write, your letter will end understated when it gets read. Get enthusiastic!

4. Write to one person
Try to think of the ideal prospect as you are writing and make the message just for them. Even if your web site will be read by thousands of people each day -- every person will read it one at a time. Use “you” and “your” liberally. Focus on them, not yourself.

5. Keep your sentences and paragraphs short.
Keep your sentences and paragraphs short and simple. Period.

Sentences (and even paragraphs) can even be one word like that last one. And paragraphs should be no more than 4 or 5 lines. You want your email to look easy to read with a lot of white space. Make it inviting. Long blocks of words are scary. Paragraph breaks do not need to be determined by content.

6. Use plenty of compelling subheads
Subheads should be like mini-headlines. Use them to break up large bodies of text and to bring people back into the body of the letter. A lot of people will scan your email so you need to make you subheads give a complete selling message by themselves. Also, be sure to use different graphic embellishments.

7. Eliminate excess wording
Simplify. Convey your message in a clear and concise manner -- but remember that doesn’t mean keep it short. You need to ruthlessly edit your email for flow.

8. Use action verbs whenever possible
If you see too many “as”, “is”, “was” or “were” replace them. Sentences using action verbs are more powerful.

When writing your email you want it clear enough so any 6th grader could understand it. Now you probably think your prospects are a lot smarter than 6th graders but nobody has time anymore to sit down and figure out what you’re trying to say -- so keep your writing simple and straightforward.

Important Particulars

There are few more important things you need to be aware of when using email autoresponders without getting in trouble for spamming (sending unsolicited emails).

1. Always give people an option of being removed from additional follow-up emails. Usually the service provider you use will do this automatically for you. Most services have a link at the bottom of your email that says:

"To stop additional follow up messages click below:
http://www.royal-responder.com/rsp-cgi/respondpro/maxuseradmin.cgi?function=manualdelete3&email=you@yourISP.com"

This link then automatically removes those people from your database. This is an important feature.

2. You also want to remind people how they got on your list. Many people are forgetful and don’t always remember all the places they signed up. So be sure to add a little line about how they got on your list.

3. Making your links ‘clickable’. In order to make it easy for people to go straight from your email to your web site you need to make your links ‘clickable’. Here’s how a link should be written in your email: http://www.yoursite.com
Most email programs will recognize this as a link. And if you want to make an email link you should write it as: mailto:emailaddress@isp.com You might also want to use an HTML link like this if you have a lot of AOL users:

<a href="http://www.yoursite.com"> Any copy you want to write here </a>

While these suggestions are not everything you should consider when composing your email messages, they are a good starting point.