Deliverability refers to the likelihood of your email marketing email being successfully delivered to your subscriber's inbox. Certain things increase your odds for delivery, such as your contact information being in your subscriber's address book. Similarly, some things decrease your odds of delivery your spam rating, the amount of images in the email, etc. There are so many issues to consider when dealing with deliverability, it's difficult to keep them straight!

Email marketing companies report statistics back to you based on your sends. The information includes delivery statistics, open rates and click-through percentages. As an email marketer, it always works to your advantage to stay on top of these statistics and adjust your campaign accordingly. For now, we'll stick to delivery rates. Working with an email marketing company will increase the odds of your email being delivered, but no company can 100% guarantee that your email marketing newsletters will make it to your subscribers' inboxes. Basically, delivery depends on what internet service providers (ISPs) do after they receive an email. Thus deliverability is largely based on your direct email marketing reputation.

So how can you ensure that your reputation isn't tarnished? First, don't send too many marketing messages. Subscribers don't want to be bombarded with the latest product or promotion. That being said, it is a good idea to increase email frequency to subscribers who are generally engaged with your branding meaning they often open emails and click on links in them.

If you want to increase your deliverability, the key is testing. Try sending a text-only version of your email. Sometimes, emails with too many images get caught up in the recipient's email platform and are marked as spam. Include a bank of links at the top of emails with unsubscribe, forward to friend and view on mobile phone links. Also, and this is huge, make sure that all emails follow the spam legislation of the country you're sending from and to. In the US, this is called the CAN-SPAM act

If you're experiencing low response rates, once again, try to test your sends. Tweak different variables within your email marketing strategy, like timing, subject lines and images. Different subscribers have different preferences, so learning what they like is a huge benefit for your email marketing campaign.

Email marketing is a method of direct marketing that uses electronic mail to send promotional messages to a specifically targeted audience. It is a powerful marketing tool that can help an organisation to build relationships with their customer base as well as helping to generate more clients.

Bulk email marketing can be performed quickly and easily using the right email marketing software, as well as at a relatively cheap cost. Emails can be tailored to each customer, thus communicating in a personable but effective manner.

When sending out an email marketing newsletter, it is important to bear in mind the following:

Make it snappy. The first thing the reader will see is the subject or title, so make sure this is attention grabbing and provides a good snapshot of what your newsletter is about. As for the text itself, make sure it is easy to read, concise and informative, with no complicated jargon or waffle. Include a short introduction and summary but focus on the main body of your text, keeping you audience's requirements in mind.

Make it audience relevant. Tailor your newsletter to focus on your targeted audience. If you have a number of different business targets then consider writing a newsletter for each audience as relevance really is the key to good content.

Offer exclusivity. Offer special benefits that the reader cannot obtain anywhere else - this will encourage them to read your newsletters on a more regular basis.

Don't overdo it. Don't send newsletters for the sake of it. Make sure you have something of interest to say before you start bulk emailing your entire customer base.

Include direct links. Links to specific parts of your website can be created within your text, allowing readers to click straight through to your site and increase the chances of a conversion.

Include contact details. It sounds obvious, but make sure that your company's contact details are displayed an eye catching way on your newsletter. There is nothing more off-putting for a customer than to have to scan content closely just to find a telephone number.

Opt out feature. Email marketing is legally required to include an opt out or unsubscribe option on every edition sent out so make sure you include this important feature

The marketing email is the interface between you and those you are trying to reach. It is the way you will be judged, at least initially. Even if it does connect with them it is only conditional and whether they actually buy or follow through on whatever it is you are offering depends on the product. If they are put off by the email then it is the end of the process.

With the email being so important you will want full control over the creative process so you might wonder why those companies which supply email marketing software provide a choice of templates.

In all sales the way the customer behaves is one limiting factor but for email marketing there is the additional restriction of the constraints of the technology. And just to make things extra interesting, these vary with time, and at an increasingly rapid rate.

Thankfully there is little requirement to know the technical details the various systems or the jargon. There is no real way to avoid HTML: hyper text mark-up language. HTML has been defined in many ways but it is simply a method to define how a document will be displayed in a web browser. It does this by the use of tags, instructions carried between the signs < and >.

You would think that, as it is a standard format, it would be the preferred option for marketing emails but this would be too simple.

Two factors limit the effectiveness of HTML: new technology and the limitations, often chosen, of web-based email readers.

Customers are increasingly using PDAs and Blueberry type mobile phones to read their emails and these often cannot display HTML. Some systems cannot display images. Another constraint might be download speeds. People are increasingly reluctant to wait for an email to display. If it doesn’t appear when expected they will hit the delete button and it will not appear at all.

Even those considerations you might think are simple are often anything but. For instance, you might think that there is a generally accepted norm for the resolution. After all, who uses 800 x 600 on their desktop or laptop nowadays? And even if they did, would you want them as customers?

With all these variations, limitations and constraints you might assume that the best option for marketing emails would be plain text. Yet as everyone with an email address knows, the default for all permission-based emails is HTML. So how do they work that out?

The standard formatting of an email provides a method whereby the recipient’s email client can detect whether it can display the HTML. If it decides it cannot then it generally will opt for the text only version. The third option is that the images will be blocked leaving just a trace around the edges with a small red cross.

Any decent company supplying email marketing software will take all these limitations into consideration so there will be aware of precisely how much freedom you have to exercise your creative urges.

Using a template as the basis for your email marketing is a great way to speed up the creation process and ensure consistency across different different campaigns.

A good email template design should take into account a number of important factors:

- different email clients render HTML differently. To cater for 98% of your recipients the email should be coded and tested to render correctly in 11 different major email clients and needs to be coded in a very different way from a standard web page.

- the design should allow readers to understand the core content without needing to load images, as may email clients block images by default.

- the design should be tailored to a specific type of campaign - the format for an email newsletter is very different to a product promotion for example.

There are a number of options for designing your email template - a good email marketing service will provide you with a selection of free email templates that you can add you own content in to, or use as a basis to customise to your branding. This is a great start as these templates will have been well tested (although you need to be careful to test again if you make major alterations) and should help you get a feel for the style that most suits your campaigns.

Ultimately though, allocating the budget to getting your own bespoke email template designed will pay great dividends - it's the difference between having a custom designed logo for your company or one made from clipart. You're investing time and energy into your email marketing and so you should ensure your presentation is as good as it can be and stands out from the crowd - you don't want to look like everyone else!

Your own bespoke template will give you complete control over the branding and content structure so that you can get it exactly right for you, with no compromises and you can ensure that your design, with your content, has been tested on all major email platforms to ensure it looks consistent.