1. Protect them. Storing data in a secure environment is critical, but that’s not all there is to privacy. You need a privacy policy, and you need to be sensitive to the amount of intrusion you cause your customers. You can read more about privacy in Chapter 4.

2. Know them. Your customers don’t lack information, they lack personalized relevant information. You don’t need to know every detail about your customers, but you have to make them feel like you know them so you can target your communications to their interests. You can find out how to determine what your customers want you to know about them in Chapter 5.

3. Help them. Email is noise when it doesn’t solve a problem or leave the recipient better off than she was before reading the email. To be successful at email marketing, your emails have to help save time, money, and angst. You can read more about helpful email content in Chapter 7.

4. Promise them. Your business makes promises, regardless of whether you intend to. When you send out a message that describes your products or services, someone has to believe it in order to buy it. When someone believes you, it’s a promise you need to keep if you want to keep that customer. When someone subscribes to your email list, you have also made a promise to send only what the subscriber believes he will receive. You can read more about making promises and sending only what you promised in Chapter 4.

5. Respond to them. Email is a two-way form of communication. Your audience wants you to respond when they interact with your emails. They can reply, click, block, unsubscribe, and forward your emails, and every form of response deserves an appropriate follow up from you. You can read more about responding to email interaction in Chapter 12.

6. Teach them. People make more educated decisions than they used to because there is so much information available. Consumers want to justify their purchase decisions with good information, and emails are perfect for delivering quality information in a concise format. You can read about creating good email content that makes your audience smarter in Chapter 7.

7. Grab them. Email inboxes are crowded with messages because of spam and because people subscribe to a lot of email lists. Most people don’t have time to read all the emails they receive, and they want someone to help them prioritize the information in their inbox. Your emails have to grab attention and deliver your message clearly. You can read more about grabbing your audience’s attention in Chapter 7.

8. Ask them. It’s just as classy to ask for your customer’s permission to start periodic emailing as it is to ask your girlfriend’s parents to start dating. It’s old-fashioned, effective, and will probably make you look better than your competition. You can read more about asking for permission in Chapter 4.

9. Give them options. Your audience isn’t likely to simply respond to an offer to “Join Our Email Blast.” You need to give people choices so they can choose the information they want to receive and make changes when their interests shift. You can read more about providing list options in Chapter 5.

10. Free them. It’s easy to think that your email list is too valuable to let anyone easily remove herself. Think again. You need to make it easy for someone to unsubscribe or move from one email list to another. Put an unsubscribe link in every email and let your audience remove themselves from your list permanently with one click. You can read more about allowing and minimizing unsubscribe requests in Chapter 4.