As virtual assistants, we love e-mail. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that more than half of our daily communication is done via e-mail. In my case, maybe even 75%…OK, maybe 90% for me. Yes, I love my e-mail.

But one thing I’ve learned is that just because e-mail is a less formal mode of communication, that doesn’t mean general business writing rules don’t apply. It’s important to write well, even with e-mail, especially when you’re in business. Poorly written e-mail can not only lead to misunderstandings and confusion, but it can cause you to lose potential clients if you’re presenting a less than professional image.

So here is what I call the BUNDLE trick (because the first letter of each tip spells out “bundle”), providing tips for making your e-mail communication as effective as possible.

Be Brief

Even if you tend to be a verbose person, try to keep your e-mail messages as short as possible and right to the point. If you have a lot to say, split it into multiple e-mails or consider adding an attachment.

Use Contact Information

All initial e-mail communication should include your e-mail signature, which typically provides your full name, company, and URL at a minimum. A phone number, title and restating your e-mail address doesn’t hurt either. Don’t make your recipient dig to find out how to contact you. If there are a series of replies and forwards, it’s OK (and appreciated) if you skip the signature.

Name the Action Items

Almost all messages will include some kind of call to action for the recipient. Do you need a response by a certain time? Do you need the recipient to let you know their availability for a meeting? State your request right before your closing and it will be the last sentence in the recipient’s mind, reminding them to act.

Define the Message in the Subject

Write your subject so it explains exactly what the message is about. The recipient should be able to just read the subject and have an idea what’s in the body, how important it is and when they will need to act on it. And please don’t use URGENT or mark the message as high priority unless it really is.

Lead with Formatting

For e-mails that have to have some length, format the message to it’s easier to follow. Use subheads and bulleted lists to break up the text. This also helps the reader zero in on the most important topics and gives them a way to jump to a specific part of the long e-mail later on.

Edit, Edit, Edit

Make it standard practice to spell-check every message before you send it. And it doesn’t hurt to give your messages a good read-through before sending to make sure they says what you want them to say.

And that is my BUNDLE trick for effective e-mail. What tips would you add to this list to make sure you e-mails are professional and effective?

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Measuring the success of an email marketing campaign is dependent on key performance indices (KPIs) which include open rates, read rates, response rates, and click-through rates. Although there are a number of factors that affect these KPIs, the use of certain power words can guarantee improved results.

Ten of the most effective power words for email marketing are listed below. Using them in email subject lines as well as in the main text will allow you to ensure higher open rates and, consequently, improve on other email marketing KPIs.

Email Marketing Power Words:

1) New – In email marketing, it is important to note that the idea of novelty and freshness always strikes the curiosity of readers and the opportunity to learn or try something they never have before is always appealing. This is especially true if the proposition of something new will bring in more benefits to their own activities.

2) Save – Everyone likes the idea of savings especially when it comes to money. When engaged in email marketing, any proposition that allows readers to feel they will be getting something for much less than what it is actually worth will be attractive.

3) Safety – Security is a basic human need. This is the reason why readers are very much attracted to the proposition of added or guaranteed safety especially when it involves their well-being or their money.

4) Proven – All consumers, especially internet users, fear the unknown and they tend to be skeptical about all sorts of claims. Providing proof through your email marketing campaign will justify your claims, ease your readers’ fears, and allow them to trust your online business as well as the products and services you have on offer.

5) Love – Love is another basic need whether it refers to human beings’ relationships or material possessions. It is simply in the nature of human beings to have intense feelings for something and the proposition to provide them with something they will love is always inviting.

6) Guarantee – People are always doubtful of things they are not familiar with. Providing them with a guarantee (even by just adding the word to your sentence) helps ease their worries. It also makes your proposition seem sound.

7) Immediate – People online need to get what they want and get it quickly. If your readers are assured that they can benefit from your proposition immediately, you will definitely catch their attention. Using similar words like “instant” or “now” will also work.

8 ) Results – People don’t do anything (or buy anything) they won’t get results out of. Assuring beneficial outcomes through your proposition will surely trigger conversions.

9) You – Readers always like to be addressed because they need to know exactly how anything will affect or benefit them. Composing your emails as if you are talking to your readers directly will certainly help in enticing them to avail of what you have to offer.

10) Free – This is considered the most powerful of all email marketing power words simply because people like the idea of gaining something (or anything) for nothing. No matter what it is you have to offer, freebies will surely get your audience interested.

These ten power words will help you boost the results of your email marketing campaign. It is important to note, however, that the more often you use them, the less powerful they become. Be strategic when using these words-use them sparingly and mean it when you do.

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I read TONS of books and Rob will attest that I buy TONS of books too. He actually had the audacity the other day, to say that I was going to create a sinkhole in our basement with my vast collection. Humph… he just doesn’t get it.

One of my favourite and often referred to books is  by Maria Veloso. I haven’t read another book that has given me so much inspiration or guidance in creating great sales copy for the online world.

One of the best tips she offers is to find a sales page online that you think is really great and effective, and literally sit down with pen and paper and copy it word for word, five or six times. Yep, it’ll take you forever – some of those pages are LONG but you’ll soon start to feel the rhythm of the copy and understand the methods they use and it can become second nature.

This book is chock full of awesome ideas with plenty of examples to get you in tune to write your own dynamic copy that sells!

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Ever wonder how you can become a content machine? Not to worry! If you’re not the creative genius you always hoped you’d be, you’re in luck. You don’t have to be a writing machine if you know where to look…which is right in your own backyard.

There’s something I always want you to continue saying to yourself – “repurpose my content, repurpose my content, repurpose my content”. Take newsletter or ezine articles you’ve done and repurpose them. Take forum answers you’ve spent time on and repurpose them. I find some of the best topics for articles comes in the form of questions my target audience is asking. Forums and Yahoo Groups I belong to make an excellent breeding ground for what people really want to know more about or are having trouble with, and which you can provide answers to…in the form of an article, of course.

Where can you post all this content treasure you’re building up?

Using content sharing sites such as HubPages and Squidoo are not only easy, they are fun to use. These sites have widgets and gadgets to make a more interesting article page. By adding pictures, user interactivity, videos, or incoming RSS feeds, Twitter Search to pull in tweets about your topic, eBay, countdowns, sports information, newswires…the list goes on, they offer up some great design and layout options for the complete newbie.

Plus, here’s the real bonus: the search engines just love them! Both are free to use. Both offer stats so you know how popular your articles are, where the traffic is coming from, what outgoing links were clicked on, etc.

New features are regularly being added to these sites. Recently, Squidoo announced that you can push your Squidoo lens (the article) out to your Twitter stream, making your content even more viral. What a marketing bonus!

When creating your hubpage or Squidoo lens, don’t forget to give yourself some link love by including a link back to your own website, for those all-important external links. Both sites encourage their authors to post multiple articles on as many topics as you want. Try to keep them centered on your business or industry. You are not limited to just one.

Blogging vs. Article Marketing vs. Non-traditional article sites

Sometimes I struggle with this myself, but the real point to spreading it around is to give you more exposure in various places on the Internet, plain and simple. Repurpose your content and create different versions of your articles to post on all three areas, and you’ll be good.

Think of it as a magic triangle of Article SEO:

1. You have your article posted as a blog post,
2. you have a slightly different version of the same article posted in an article directory, such as www.ezinearticles.com,
3. then you have another slightly different version of the article published on HubPages.

It’s quite common to easily own several top spots on Google for the same search term. All with links to your website and including your primary keywords and phrases. What a great opportunity to display expertise in your field!

Sound appealing? Yeah, thought so.

Be sure to visit and participate in these websites to gain a greater advantage in search engine visibility over your competitors:

HubPages: www.hubpages.com

Squidoo: www.squidoo.com

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