If you’re not already using email marketing, you better think about starting to. Without any doubt, email marketing is the fastest growing promotional method for the internet today. It’s a good idea to get your feet wet in the fundamentals of email marketing as soon as you can.

The most important fundament of email marketing is the “list.” You must have a list to send your emails to. Typically, the origin of this list will be existing customers or prospects whose email addresses you get by examining your very own records. In the future, you may want to concentrate more on capturing email addresses of prospects, and eventually you may consider renting or trading lists with other firms.

Once you have your email list, you will need an “offer.” What is it you will be offering by email? Free software trial? A demonstration? A free sample? A special discount? Make sure you spell out your offer in your email – this will be necessary in both the subject line and the body of your email. Try different offers too, and over time, you will find which ones perform best.

Always include a “click-through” on your email (or more than one) to get to an ordering or information page. Monitoring traffic on that page is going to be one way you measure the success of your campaign!

Lastly, create the actual email. Remember this will be done in HTML so if it uses graphic images of any kind, they have to be available on an available server so that they don’t show up as attachments (most people don’t like opening email with attachments that they don’t expect).

To send your email use a commercial email distribution service. There are hundreds to choose from but www.myemma.com and www.constantcontact.com are two examples of good, easy-to-use services. Both can send your email rapidly and provide you with open-rate and click-through statistics.

May as well get started now. Email marketing is going to be something you will need in the future, so start getting experience with it today!