From social media and print advertisements to TV commercials and digital ads, consumers are constantly inundated with commercial messaging. As a brand marketer, it may be difficult to identify the best channel mix to most effectively reach your audience – and the truth is, each channel offers something different. That’s why it’s important to make sure the outlets you select align with your business or brand goals.

One often overlooked work horse is email marketing. In addition to allowing you to personalize your messaging, target your consumer and touch base with your audience on a consistent basis, email marketing also provides one of the highest ROIs out of any marketing effort. Email marketing works. How well it works is up to you. That’s why we put together four email marketing tips to maximize results.

1. Create a Targeted Email List – Creating and continuing to build upon on a targeted, personalized email list is invaluable. While it may be hard to get started and build that initial database, take the time build your email list from the ground up instead of taking a short cut and buying an email list. With purchased email lists, your contacts likely won’t be the targeted, qualified contacts you want, and you also run the risk of getting marked as spam, having low engagement rates and having your brand seen as unreputable.

2. Make Your Content Readable – One of the most effective tactics for marketing emails is to have quick, concise, tangible content with a single purpose. Ideally, the content would be consumable in a bullet point format to help people skim and consume those important keywords. Some other key aspects to remember are having a great subject line, big headline, little content or imagery, a colorful call-to-action, and to always make it personal.

3. Be Relevantly Intriguing – Consumers are going to respond best to content that is relevant to them. But what good is your content if they don’t open your email? Make sure your subject line gets seen. Create a sense of importance. Use action-oriented verbs. Pose a question. Tune in to pop culture. And don’t be afraid to tell them what’s inside. If your open rates are low, they probably aren’t being seen.

4. Have a Purpose – Marketing emails build upon the relationship with your subscriber, spawn conversations that can be shared with others, and can inspire the end user to feel, think or act. Guide users with strategically placed calls-to-action.