One nice thing about being in online marketing for so long is you see just about everything in marketing emails. Marketers will try with no success, and then their behavior becomes predictable. Early on they are hot and sending good emails, with content, and eventually there are only emails that are selling something. There are some powerful lessons in that for you if you want to do list marketing. Fixing a list that is not working out for you is doable, but there needs to be an accurate and honest assessment of the situation. Most people just give up on your unproductive lists, but that is not what a successful business person will ever do.
All right, we have reviewed the first couple of points regarding Campaign Marketing, of course you realize they play an important role. You will find a lot of times that you can take an approach from something else and apply it to email marketing. If you ever wonder how you should write your email copy, or rather the style you should use, then look to your audience. You can get a good idea about this from a real, live person (I know) who was baffled by her subscribers. She explains they want to understand things, so there is a need to explain everything. She deals with a special type of investing in which nothing is talked about in just a few minutes. Well, the people she writes to like her lengthy emails that take the time to make everything as clear as possible.
Your first one or two autoresponder emails should not be just like they would be with somebody you have known for a long time. There is an ice-breaking and getting-to-know period that is part of normal interactions. Rather than sitting down and putting your feet up, be a little more conservative depending on your audience. People like to know things and do not like to be in the dark, so feed that by being open about how often they can expect to hear from you. Plus they will like that you took the time to tell them you are grateful for their subscription.
Should you decide to go with HTML formatted emails, then take care you do not get carried away with fonts and changes to them. Including too many fancy font things really can backfire with your readers. Always use font effects where most appropriate and never all the time because people get immune to it. We know that many list marketers prefer HTML emails just so they can use certain kinds of tracking scripts. Tracking scripts do nothing different from what would normally be done with text format emails. Think about what you are doing which is trying to compel another person to engage in commerce. In order to learn how to write like that, you need to study the principles of copywriting. Letting your true self shine in your writing will serve to bring people closer to you because they will feel like they know you better. You can have power with simplicity and no aggression in your voice, and that is just one example of what is possible.