With the current rate of spam and promotional emails people get all the time, all of the following is getting harder for legitimate marketers:

• Get people subscribe to your list. They are too tired of receiving crap.
• Get people open your mails. Even  if they don’t unsubscribe, they’ll often just delete the mail.
• Keep people on the list. After working hard to attract a subscriber you don’t want to lose them because you wrote something wrong.
• Get people click on links and buy what you offer.

People who tell you building a mailing list and using it as a source of customers is easy, are simply lying (and trying to get you subscribe to their list), or just have no idea what they are talking about.

Still, the mailing list is one of the most sustainable, most responsible, and least expensive ways to build traffic and have your offers seen and heard.

Here’s a list of good resources that will help you get the most of your list – from building it, to sustaining it and getting results from it.

While the resources in each category are not exactly ordered, I’ve tried to put the best ones first so in case you get tired by one topic, you’ll have learned the most important about it. Some of the advice may overlap or even contradict. Marketing is not exact science, you know.

All links open in new window.

List Building, Conversion/Opt-in

Building your list – that’s where you want to start. And if you are working hard or paying for visitors on your squeeze page, you want to make sure the conversion rate of opt-ins is good.

– 20 Giveaways For List Building – This Is Email Marketing On Autopilot – a great list of ideas. Just don’t forget that all these things require time and/or money to create.
– Why List Building WORKS & how I wasted 2 Years – includes a video
– 12 Lead Capture Squeeze Pages Elements of Success – basic but important tips
– Are Pop-Up Opt-In Forms Still Effective? Part 1 and Part 2. I’d be very careful with those as they can increase your site bounce rate. They are very irritating for me.
– How To Build Your Email List Without A Big Website (Video) – includes a video from Jim Cockrum
– List Building 101: Why And How To Build Your List
– How to Build an Email List – 7 “Cs” to Supercharge Your List Building
– 5 Steps You Can Start Implementing Right Now To Explode Your Subscribers Base
– Increase Your Subscriber Opt-In Rate With These Useful Tips
– How To Build Your Email List Fast
– How I Gained 200 Blog Subscribers Fast!
– Build a Email List? – Why & How
– How to Get More Feed Subscribers: 10 Tips
– 12 Ways to Build Your E-mail List
– How to build your email mailing list

Unlimited Mailing List
and Autoresponder Software

Newsletter Content

If you bombard your list with offers, most will unsubscribe, others will delete and some may even report you for spam. Make sure your newsletter content is useful and interesting or your offers are really amazing.

– How to Write Effective Email Newsletters
– To Write A Top-Quality Newsletter, Study Michael Campbell – a bit old but still valid
– A Way to Repurpose Content and Grow Your Email Marketing List – repurposing content is always a good idea.
– Electronic Newsletter (Ezine) Resources. Usually I don’t recommend using such kind of basic content for your newsletters. In some niches it may work however.
– How To Write An Email Newsletter

Improve readability and open rates

While good content is required, you need to make users open your mails first. Subjects and your reputation will play the big role here.

– How to Write The Best Email Subject Lines. This one is good. Subjects matter the most so I would pay the most attention to it.
– Email Marketing Design – Helpful Tips To Improve Your Email Open Rates
– Write the Perfect Email Subject Line – and again on subjects
– Increase Email Click Through: Avoid Distractions
– 10 Email Newsletter Design Tips
– 6 Rules to Improve Email Deliverability
– Improve your email open rates
– How to Improve Your Email Newsletter Open Rates

Unlimited Mailing List
and Autoresponder Software

Testing (A/B Testing)

I’ve been stupid not to test for years. In 2010 I started A/B testing and discovered how many of my assumptions were so wrong.
– A Beginner’s Guide To A/B Testing: An Introduction. A must read article by Kissmetrics. Don’t miss it.
– Optimize Your Email Marketing Newsletter through A/B Split Testing
– How to Measure the Effectiveness of E-mail Newsletter Ads
– A/B split testing

Monetization of your newsletter

If you are running a content site maybe you don’t have a product or service to offer. Then read these articles:

– Monetize Your Blog’s Subscriber List
– 4 Ways Video Makes Email Marketing More Profitable
– How to Run a NON-Scummy, Profitable Email Marketing Campaign
– Five Strategies to Monetize a Mailing List

Unlimited Mailing List
and Autoresponder Software

Miscellaneous and General

These posts don’t fit to specific category or cover more categories at once. They are also good:

– Email marketing: A Beginner’s Guide (PDF inside)
– Email Marketing Census 2011 (PDF inside)
– Internet Marketers’ Dictionary – a good list of words and language you may want to use too.
– What the Gmail Priority Inbox Means for Marketers. With the increasing number of Gmail users you definitely need to read this.
– The Problem With Autoresponders (Video)
– 5 Uncommon Ways to Use Auto-Responders to Grow Your Business
– Email Marketing – Is it Still Effective?. The short answer is yes. For the long answer read the article.
– How to Handle User Unsubscribe to Your Advantage?
– Affiliate Emails: How To Prevent Spam Complaints – very important. You really don’t want to be labeled as spammer.
– Is Your Email List Really Small? Read This Now.
– 6 Goals You Should Have For Your Email Marketing Campaign
– Why Successful Affiliate Marketers Use an Autoresponder
– eMail Marketing Tips – Valuable eMail Marketing Information
– 22 Rapid Tips On Email Marketing For Bloggers
– That’s not SPAM, That’s My Newsletter!

That sums it up for now, but I may add resources over time. If you think there’s anything missing, feel free to comment.