Email marketing is just one of the few ways to promote your product, website or services to your target market and it has been around for quite some time. Even if you've been doing email marketing to create and improve your online presence in an interactive way, marketing trends are constantly changing. Apart from modifying your design, layout or template in a regular basis, there are other ways to keep your e-mails up-to-date.

Here are 6 useful tips and trends this 2012 to get your visitors to subscribe to your newsletters:

1. Better Call-to-Action Through Social Media Integration

The fastest way to spread news nowadays is through social media. Facebook has already added an e-mail feature to every user, which is HTML-friendly and multimedia-attachable.
You can also place a "share this e-mail" link to your mail. Instead of asking your readers to forward your message to friends, they can share it to sites like Twitter and Facebook.

2. Go Mobile

We're all aware that internet marketers nowadays have taken mobile marketing seriously. Know your audience. Know how they read their emails and where they read their emails. Design your opt-in forms in mobile-friendly ways. HTML5 gives end users an easy experience to filling-up forms through iPhone and Safari browsers. Construct your email layout in a mobile-friendly way. New mobile phones that are coming out show HTML contents, allow you to click and view videos and other embedded objects.

If you're running an offline business, you can make one of those coupons that your readers could receive through email after filling-up your opt-in form and present to your business in person for a discount or freebie. This is just one of the few ways to make mobile readership appealing and interactive.

3. Shorter and Straightforward E-mails

This is not a new thing. But even in 2011 we still get those long emails from the newsletters we were subscribed to. Even some Internet marketers are guilty of this.
In relaying your message, be straightforward. Think of creative ways to get your readers' attention without having to let them read long blocks of text. Bear in mind that there could be hundreds of SPAM messages on your readers Junk folder. If they see that it's something commercial, they don't read, they just scan. Make your message short and succinct and make it interesting by placing a catchy text on the subject line.

If your website has a blog, you can place a link at the bottom of your message that links to your article. Instead of sending them a long boring email, get them to read your article as it would be less boring because you can add pictures and videos to your post. This is also a great way to add traffic to your site.

4. Effective Targeting

For the past few years e-mail marketing has always been associated with SPAM and irrelevant mails. This year, people are getting wiser and to get higher level of engagement from your readers, always aim for relevant and well-targeted content.

5. Email Marketing with Style

We are all aware that E-mail hosts are making our mails boring for the better by turning images off by default. But this doesn't mean that we don't need to send our mails with style. Even without images and HTML, make your mails look attractive and presentable by using rich-text styles, borders and applying Web 2.0 look to your e-mails.

Also, give your message a new look regularly or update the style and make it seasonal. Make it look more personal rather than the old, professional, autopilot and monotonous look that blends with the other usual e-mails that they could get. Give them a reason to subscribe and look forward in to something fresh and new.

6. The Old WIIFM

Don't forget that your subscribers subscribed to get something, not to read your promotions. Remember the old What's In it For Me rule in advertising. Give them a freebie for every purchase. Time-limited offers could be exciting or even a 20% discount on their next purchase. They want to look forward for something more, something that they couldn't just get from their usual subscription. Give them rewards for their loyalty, even once in a while.