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In the era of social media marketing, email marketing may seem quaint—but it is still one of the most effective marketing practices, combining low costs and high targeting ability to directly deliver your message to a receptive contact list.

Level Ten Interactive recently posted a list of helpful tips to keep in mind as you launch an email marketing campaign. But what are some of the things you should remember as you communicate with your consumers and try to build a lasting and mutually profitable relationship?

The following is a list of best practices that every email marketer should follow in order to enhance your marketing message and keep your customers happy and clicking:

1. Get read. That’s the first thing, of course! As an email user, you know that email marketing messages have but a short second to get your attention. As a marketer, you must first avoid spam filters by ensuring that your users have solicited your message and your subject line is free of spam-trigger words like free, percent, reminder, winner, discount, and collect (more examples of trigger words can be found here).

Even after this, readers very quickly assimilate a large amount of information — Who is the sender? What is the subject and is it relevant to my needs? What does the preview pane (if available in their email client) say? — to make their decision in a fraction of a second. Subject lines should be topical, specific and ideally no longer than 50 characters, according to research by Mail Chimp.

2. Personalize. Personalize your email and make it about your readers. Use their names, remember their preferences, and sign off with your own name and information. Don’t be afraid to inject your personality into your emails and let your readers know where you’re coming from.

3. Be consistent. Presenting a consistent message is part of gaining your readers’ trust, and this should be evident in all aspects of your marketing plan: from the voice in which you write your newsletters or emails to the regularity with which you send emails.

4. Reward. Email marketing works like all marketing in this respect—make it about your readers, and clearly communicate the benefits of your product or offering. Testimonials, discounts and bonus offers can be highly effective, as long as they are real and relevant to the expressed interests of your user list.

5. Respect. This is basic but crucial: respect your users if you want them to pay attention. Respect their privacy and preferences, and set up a double opt-in process for subscription (double opt-in requires users to click a confirmation link in their email, which not only increases your user’s engagement but also makes your list more targeted). Last but not least, make it easy for users to unsubscribe – ideally with a single click.

6. Learn from your data. While this and other sources like this are offered to help you make the most of your email marketing campaign, there is no substitute for the details and possibilities that can be opened up by analyzing your own data. Common research shows that Tuesdays and Thursdays are generally good times to send your email, and that simple text links work usually work better than links embedded in images or fancy html. But having your own user list and click-through data means that you can move beyond the general and usual and hone in on specific details (and even exceptions) that work better in your case. Data gathering and analysis can both guide and reward your experimentation—and help you take your email marketing campaign, and your sales, to the next level.