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With a never-ending flow of spam on the Internet people are careful with every new message they receive. Some people immediately delete suspicious emails without opening them, others use anti-spam filters that block any email they consider as spam. It's great if you already have a list of subscribers, to which you are sending newsletters at a regular basis. People know who you are and most likely have your email address in their address books or whitelists, so your email is let through with no problems.

But what about the first email campaign? How can you maximize the chances of getting a decent response from your first mailing?

The first email campaign often gets a low response rate. In some degree this is due to the product or service you are offering, or the design of the website. But a great part of it is in the message itself.

Follow these simple rules and your email campaign should be successful right from the beginning:

1) Don't send from a forged or non existing email address. Use your valid email in the email From field. People can reply to your message so be sure the replies arrive to a real person.

2) Know what you want to achieve by your email before you sit down and write it. Do you want more visitors to your website? More sales for your products? More signups to your newsletter? Whatever aim you have, keep it in mind while writing your email.

3) Spell it right. There's nothing worse than receiving a marketing email with poor spelling and grammar. Read and re-read your message a few times to discover and correct possible mistakes and typos.

4) Don't write too long. Split the text into paragraphs. Keep the paragraphs short and punchy - you have very little time to grab people's attention. Use simple words, short phrases and paragraphs consisting of just 1-3 short sentences.

5) Don't use all capital letters! The text in all capitals is difficult to read and looks like you are shouting. Occasional use of capital letters to emphasize a word is ok, but be aware that some spam filters delete email messages with words all in capitals.

6) Call to action. In first two sentences of your email tell people who you are, and what you want them to do. Then you can use the rest of the email to expand on your products and services.

7) Deadline. Set a deadline for your offer by using phrases such as 'First 100 to apply' or 'The Offer Expires on December 25, 2006' - fear of missing out on something always generates a good click through.

8) Send a text version of your message together with the HTML part. Don't neglect the text version. Make sure it is composed well. It can be useful for those recipients who can read only text emails due to security reasons or email client configuration. If you compose your newsletter in G-Lock EasyMail, the program automatically creates a text version of the message and sends it together with the HTML part. You can also preview the text part before sending the message out and adjust it as you need.

9) Provide a way to unsubscribe. People must have a quick way to remove themselves from your mailing list. It may be an unsubscribe link somewhere at the bottom of your email. Don't forget to exclude from your list those recipients who unsubscribed.

10) Always send a test message to yourself or your coworkers. The message can display differently after it is received by an email client. Make sure that everything is in place: images are shown, links are working, and text is formatted as it must be. Is everything looks fine, you are ready to send out to the world.