Contrary to popular belief, the money is not in the list, but how you use it. If every mailing that you send out is a blatant promotion, then your subscribers will get wise and cause your open rates to plummet. If a subscriber got a lot of value out of your last email, they will be much more likely to open your next one.

Here are some tips to help you get more of your emails opened:

1. "List subscribers is people!" so treat them like it. Pardon the vague reference to Soylent Green. The point I'm trying to make is that you need to treat each of your subscribers as human beings. Your readers will most likely not have the same marketing knowledge or mentality as you. You may not mind getting pitched everyday on products, but your subscribers probably will. People like being appreciated. If you reply to their emails quickly, they'll know that there is a real person (as opposed to Joe Marketer or an autoresponder) behind the emails they get. People like voicing their opinions. Make your emails fun and informative so that your subscribers feel the need to email you back about it. Also, consider sending your subscribers to a blog so that they can interact with each other as well, something which creates additional value for the reader.

2. Email frequently. In certain niches, frequent mailings would be inappropriate. In the Internet marketing niche, it is very much appropriate because one can never learn enough in this industry. If you email every day, you will get a few complaints, no matter how good your emails are. Once your list is used to your daily mailings, you will start to see a huge boost in your open rates. The key here is to provide value in either the email or the site which your email is linking to. If you don't provide value in your emails, then your readers will have no reason to continue reading. If you don't email every day, you are leaving a lot of money on the table. If you email too infrequently, your readers will forget who you are and why they subscribed to your list.

3. Have an attention-grabbing subject line. Your subject line is arguably the most important part of your email marketing campaign. It is always the first thing they see and could potentially be the last part of your campaign that they see before deleting your email or unsubscribing from your list. It is impossible to give a one-size-fits-all solution to writing compelling headlines, so try out different approaches. Some find that benefit-driven subject lines work well while others prefer having vague but intriguing subject lines.

When you provide value to your subscribers, they'll show their gratitude by opening more of your emails and even emailing you back with comments. Your subscribers will start to learn that each of your emails contains a lot of value and that skipping over it would mean missing out. When your subscribers get to the point where they're eagerly anticipating every one of your emails, that's when you know you're doing it right.