Although email marketing remains an effective way to communicate with your current and potential customers, as time goes on you have to compete with more and more traffic, bound for your subscribers’ inboxes. In order to make your emails stand out and hang on to your readers’ attention, follow the suggestions presented here.

Brevity is valuable in every kind of marketing, and it’s particularly vital in email marketing. If you make a habit of keeping your emails short, your readers will come to expect (and to appreciate!) your directness. When a subscriber has a choice between reading your email, which she knows will be quick and to-the-point, or another email that may well be very long, your email will be the one that gets read.

One way that you can keep the length of your messages down and make them as direct as possible is to make them intensely focused. Don’t try to provide a complete news update that covers every single little change happening in your business. Pick one sale, one product, or one message to write about. Everything that goes into your email should relate directly to this point. If you let your attention wander when you write your message, you can bet your subscribers’ attention will wander when they read it!

Your “call to action” (the suggestion that tells readers what you want them to do next) is the most important part of your email. Don’t hide this vital component in the middle of a paragraph of text! Your call to action should stand alone. Most email calls to action will involve a link to a page on your website. If you send your marketing emails in full HTML, consider using a little formatting to make the call stand out; it could even be a distinctive button.

Speaking of formatting and advanced email features, you may well be using images in your marketing messages. That’s fine! You must remember, though, that there are still many email users out there who don’t automatically load images in every email they receive. In order to make your messages effective with this audience, make sure that you convey all of your important information in the text.

Finally, don’t neglect proofreading. Email is a wonderfully fast and casual way to communicate – for individuals. When you’re using email for marketing purposes, you’re representing your business. You will appear as professional (or amateurish) as the amount of effort you put into composing your messages. A few extra minutes spent eliminating typos and checking spelling will ensure that you don’t make a poor impression on your subscribers.

There’s plenty of good marketing mileage to be had in a strong email campaign. You don’t need to be a marketing expert to get access to it, either. Just bear in mind that your readers’ time is limited; in order to make an impact you have to make your emails as strong as possible. The advice you’ve just received will help you stand out in a crowded inbox and ensure that your message is heard.