The first step in any successful email marketing campaign is actually getting your emails delivered so they have the potential to be read by your prospective client or customer.

There are several "rules" of email copywriting you'll want to keep in mind to avoid having your email stopped before its delivered and cast into the deep darkness of corporate junk mail folders. One mistake might not cause you to end up in the spam category... but if you make too many mistakes you will be snet to the spam folder by email providers like Yahoo or Gmail before your readers even have a chance to read them.

What Not To Include In Your Email Copy

There are some words and phrases that will get your email rejected whether its spam or not. Here are a five tips about words and phrases you might want to avoid:

1. Using the word FREE... especially if its in all caps is a red flag that will get you blocked more often than not. The word "free" as a stand alone word is not the end the world but when put together with other words like "free membership", "free sex", "free money", "financial freedom" you're looking for trouble.
2. Repetitive punctuation, especially exclamation points!!!!!!! will cast you into promotional purgatory
3. ALL CAPS... yes we all want to add emphasis now and them but this technique is easily overdone and has long been used as a criteria for tagging incoming email as junk.
4. MLM either the acronym or the associated phrases “multi-level marketing”, “network marketing” or “business opportunity” will throw up red flags.
5. Andy mention of cheap medication, drugs etc. and you are probably toast

It's not impossible to get your email delivered

This list might seem like a lot to cut out of your email promotions but the main lesson is to remember your customer. Write valuable, relevant email copy and send them to people who want to hear about that subject and you are well on your way to email marketing success.