Email newsletters are easily one of the most powerful and cost-effective marketing tools a business has to generate both new and repeat business on a regular basis, yet many business owners who decide to start a newsletter make one big mistake that can actually end up creating a huge headache in the log run -- potentially costing time, revenues and reputation.

Without taking into account the finer details of copywriting such as action words and key phrases that can make your email marketing campaign much more effective, the act of putting together the text and content you want to convey in your email newsletter is easy enough. However, many first-time newsletter writers choose to send their first emails directly from their business computers using their company domain name and email address. What a big mistake.

Why is This Bad?

The majority of personal email accounts, especially those hosted by free services such as Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo! refer to one of several internet SPAM blacklists to help them decide whether inbound mail should be delivered to the user's inbox or the junk mail folder. The email providers also send the blacklists feedback in the form of a list of SPAM hitrates. In other words, what email addresses are routinely sending email that recipients are marking as junk unsolicited mail and don't want to see.

If a pattern emerges where a specific email address is routinely sending out emails that get flagged as SPAM, then that address, domain and even potentially the entire server's IP address will be added to the blacklist. This in turn will prevent future emails sent from that address or domain from ever reaching an inbox, whether the email is indeed SPAM or legitimate. Even for an experienced IT manager, getting a domain off a blacklist can take weeks, months or even years, and of course by then too much damage has been done.

Unfortunately, even though you may think the people you are sending the newsletter to are actually interested in what you have to say, there will inevitably be recipients who will mark the email as junk mail either because they don't remember giving you permission to email them (or who you are), are no longer interested in what you have to offer, or just don't understand what the 'Mark as SPAM' button actually does.

This in turn can potentially blacklist not just your own email account, but also your entire website domain, meaning other email sent from your company, such as from a support email address or a sales email address will also be automatically marked as SPAM and potentially cost you sales revenue and probably worse, your company's reputation.

One Easy Solution - With Many Added Benefits!

The simple solution is to use an email marketing service. These services have strict agreements with blacklists so their own outbound mail servers are listed as "trusted" and requiring that their clients comply with the CAN-SPAM act of 2003. Among other things, this act requires the sender to only use opt-in mailing lists, provide a simple unsubscribe link in the body of the email and the full mailing address of the sender in the email.

As a result of this trust relationship, newsletters sent using a professional email newsletter service will benefit from much higher deliverability rates, and more importantly, you will not be exposing your own domain to the possibility of getting blacklisted as a spammer.

There are many other advantages to using an email marketing service as well. They all offer some kind of open and click statistics that give you an idea of how effective your campaign is by telling you how many times your newsletter was actually read, forwarded, or your links clicked. Many also offer a full library of professional email templates and stock images as well as powerful email editors, social media integration features, surveys and event planning tools.

You Can Start for Free!

The best part is, most email newsletter providers offer a very generous free trial period so you can explore the benefits of using their service. You should be able to try at least a couple services and see which one you like, as you will get a fully functioning account for at least thirty days with no need to even enter your credit card.

To send an email newsletter, be sure to click and visit the eBizToolkit.com Email Marketing service reviews page and see what other benefits a newsletter service can offer your business. The page lists providers as ranked by rating and have actual customer reviews to help you make an informed decision based on real people's experiences. Be sure to take advantage of the best free trials and exclusive discounts and coupons available to new customers as listed on the site!

The eBizToolkit.com is a directory of online tools and services that can help small businesses increase productivity, streamline their workflow and generate a more professional image all while reducing operating costs.