I woke up this morning and of course first thing I did was to look at my email.. Well..I have to say this. I am just getting so tired of the “catch me phrases” that litter the subject line. So I thought what gets me to open an email? For instance these do not work for me:

I’ve got bad news…Do they really think i want bad news first thing in the morning? Just keep it to yourself!

Can I tell you a secret…NO you cant, I cant keep secrets

Stop what your doing and read this…I don’t want to stop, go away

The secret is out…Who cares if the secret is out, another new secret will be out tomorrow.

Someone finally cured…Oh yeah right, like I believe that one.

Important-Must read in next five minutes…OMG that has to be the silliest thing I ever heard

Brand new…Is there such a thing as original thought anymore?

blah
blah
and blah

then click
click
click
and delete

So that is my personal opinion on writing a grabbing line for emails which are the words that should get me to open an email. I am simply tired of all the ick and crap that is written to get me to open an email. So what do I think will get me to open an email? The persons name is the first thing, and the only other thing that will get me to open an email in the subject place is something that is not hype.

Subjects with I’m sorry, You just have to look, Sorry I am sending this out again but it is so important, just don’t work with me. I need bold. I am selling this, Buy this because, I tried this and it worked, I want to help you and things like that.

Yes this was a bit of a personal rant, but I cant believe I am the only one out there thinking these things.

Lately I have been receiving a lot of emails that are not very easy to read. Is it because of the content? No, it is because of the email formatting. I had wondered if it was a problem in my own email formatting setup, but then I realized that I get other email messages formatted for easy reading.

So, my questions to you are, “Are you getting email messages that are all broken up? If so, “do you think you might be sending out the same?” Is the email formatting on your own outgoing mail done correctly?

You know what I am talking about; the text is spilled all over the page. Two words on one line then ten words on the next and then a big white place and a few more words.” It looks very unprofessional and if you are trying to get people to trust in your business, then it should be an absolute must that you send out your email messages formatted correctly. When I receive an email like this I simply hit the back page button and don’t read it.

Now I know for myself and I am sure for you as well, that you want your email formatting done for for easy reading. This is what you need to do. First go and check to see if any of your autoresponse messages that you are sending out look scrambled. If they are perfect when they arrive to you, then you do nothing. I checked and sure enough a few of them in my autoresponder series arrived all broken up! Gasp! My email formatting was not done correctly!

Understanding why your email formatting is doing this is the first step to fixing it. Character count is important. It is the amount of typed letters, signs and spaces on each line. Each email client is different. So if you are using seventy characters and it looks good with your email, but unknowingly send it to someone whose client only allows 60, then your last ten characters will go to a new line. Thus they will be seeing a broken up message and probably one that they will not read. To solve this problem, just limit your character line to say 60-65 characters.

The next problem with your email formatting could be in the font you choose. The default standard is not the best way to go, for the character varies with width. This means that an “I” will take up less character space than a “W” and because of that, the text might end up being taken to the next line after the character count is done. It is best to choose to use a fixed font, sometimes known as mono space font, something like Courier or Letter Gothic.

Do not type your text long enough on a line to use the wrap around feature. It is best to hit enter to go to the next line, also known as a “hard return”. Most of your word processing programs will have somewhere that while you type it displays the line you are typing and the character number, keep tract of it and when you are near your 60-65 limit, hit the return key.

One final way to avoid formatting emails that send out distorted communications is to save them in a universal format. Save your message either in plain text, which is almost always Courier New Font or Rich format, which every word processing can open. Look for these formats in your “save as” dropdown box.

Now that you know the reasons behind the jumbled email and in your email formatting tools you can fix it so that none of yours go out that way. You can send out your email messages formatted for easy reading, and know that they will not only get opened but read.

It will show your professionalism and care that you take in communicating with your email list.

Choose Your Email Account

Let us start with probably the first thing that you will need to do online if you want to run a business. Choose your email account. It is very important that you choose your email account to be separate from any personal ones that you might have.

It probably sounds very basic, but you would be surprised at how many people do not know this. Then when their personal accounts gets inundated with messages they then want to know what to do. So again it is important to choose your email account so it is only used as your business account email.

Another reason that you should choose your email account to be a business one is that it is now dedicated to only that business. You can keep better track of your messages and if you have a problem with spam then you would be able to handle it quickly. When you choose your email account make sure that it has some good spam guards in place.

When you choose your email account make sure that it is a good professional sounding one, not something like hotbabe@hotmail.com or Bighunk@yahoo.com. You can choose your email account name in many ways, just make sure that you pick a professional sounding one that encourages your email recipient to trust you.

The next thing you need to do after you choose your email account name and have signed up for your email account is to add your signature file to the end of it. It is not just your signature that will be added to every email you send out, but you will also add your business or product when you get one. A good idea is to find out if the email provider attaches any ads to your email. That could make a difference when you choose your email account provider.

This will get your started with advertising in a simple way. Your signature file sticks with your emails, even if they are forwarded along to another. They too will then see your signature file, and soon it will spread throughout the world that way.

A perfect example of this is the web based company of Hotmail. When they first started up and someone joined at the bottom of every email that person sent out was the small sentence that said:

Get your free email account now -http://www.Hotmail.com. The response was astronomical! Soon everyone that got the email signed up for their own account and when they wrote their family, friends and business associates, those people also signed up.

Soon, Hotmail had millions of people using their services worldwide and became the largest web based email service at the time. So can you see how potent this small signature can be?

When you choose your email account it is best to go with ones that have a history and are well known. I have included a few here with some information about each.

Choose your email account provider

1. Gmail - Free Email Service(Google Mail)
Gmail is the Google approach to email and chat. Practically unlimited free online storage allows you to collect all your messages, and Gmail’s simple but very smart interface lets you find them precisely and see them in context without effort. POP and powerful IMAP access bring Gmail to any email program or device.Gmail puts contextual advertising next to the emails you read.

2. AIM Mail – Free Email Service
AOL’s free web-based email service, shines with unlimited online storage, very good spam protection and a rich, easy to use interface.Unfortunately, AIM Mail lacks a bit in productivity (no labels, smart folders and message threading), but makes up for some of that with very functional IMAP (as well as POP) access.

3. GMX Mail – Free Email Service
This is a reliable email service filtered well of spam and viruses whose 5 GB of online storage you can use not only through a rich web interface but also via POP or IMAP from a desktop email program.
More and smarter ways to organize mail could be nice.

4. Yahoo! Mail - Free Email Service
Yahoo! Mail is an email program on the web with unlimited storage and RSS news feeds, SMS texting and instant messaging to boot. While Yahoo Mail is nice to use, free-form labelling and smart folders would be nice, and the spam filter could catch junk even more effectively.

5. Zenbe – Free Email Service
Zenbe organizes your emails and attachments (from Zenbe and existing POP accounts) with labels and search — and integrates calendar, to-do list, twitter and Facebook updates, too. With a focus on simplicity, Zenbe provides many sweet shortcuts but also shows quirks and omissions in others. The spam filter is good, but it would be great if IMAP access was possible for all folders (not just the inbox).

6. Gawab.com – Free Email Service
Gawab.com is a speedy, stable and very usable free email service with 10 GB online space, POP and IMAP access as well as many a web-based goodie. The IMAP implementation does not give you access to labels, and full message search is missing from the web interface.

7. Inbox.com - Free Email Service
This not only gives you 5 GB to store your mail online but also a highly polished, fast and functional way to access it via either the web or through POP in your email program.Unfortunately, IMAP access is not supported by Inbox.com, and its tools for organizing mail could be improved with smart or self-teaching folders.

8. FastMail Guest Account – Free Email Service
FastMail is a great free email service with IMAP access, useful features, one of the best web-based email interfaces and few ads.

9. Yahoo! Mail Classic – Free Email Service
This is a comfortable, reliable and secure email service with unlimited storage. A pretty good spam filter keeps the junk out, and you can send rich emails using Yahoo! Mail’s HTML editor.

10. Windows Live Hotmail – Free Email Service
This gives you 5 GB of online storage, fast search, solid security and an interface easy as a desktop email program.
When it comes to organizing mail, it only has folders, its spam filter could be more effective, and POP or IMAP access are missing.

I hope this has been a help to you when you decide to choose your email account provider. It is a very important step.