Target Marketing magazine has an interesting article entitled “Four E-mail Opportunities You Could Be Missing” that you should read if you are using emails to market your business and connect with your customers. According to the article, many marketers are making mistakes in the implementation that results in poor performance from email campaigns:

Missed opportunity #1: Make sure your message is visible to recipients.
The rule is simple – make sure the recipient can see your email. Outlook for example blocks images, so be sure that even if the images are blocked, a user can still get your message

Missed opportunity #2: Send a welcome message
One of the most common of marketers is the failure to send a welcome message when the customer or visitor first signs up to receive emails. This is a missed opportunity to drive home the benefits of agreeing to receive your emails.

Missed opportunity #3: Segment your e-mails.
Avoid acting like Big Brother who knows every move of the customer (e.g. whether they simply opened the email but did not click), but do send a reinforcement email making a stronger case of your offer.

Missed opportunity #4: Work with the right deliverability metrics.
Investigate the metrics given by your email provider, and check whether the numbers make sense or how false positives are counted. You need to work with good measurement statistics to accuratelt determine the effectiveness of your email campaigns.