Want to get my business tips regularly? Sign up for my monthly e-mail newsletter. Want ideas on safeguarding your pet? Get your vet’s e-mail newsletter. Don’t want to miss a cooking class from your favorite local gourmet store? They’ve probably got an e-mail newsletter too.

It’s gotten easier — and cheaper — to send e-mail newsletters, thanks to a profusion of Web-based e-mail newsletter services. As a result, small businesses in every industry have launched their own regular newsletters. They’re an effective, inexpensive, and relatively easy way for small companies to regularly stay in touch with customers and prospects.

Have you thought about launching an e-mail newsletter for your business? I started a monthly e-mail newsletter a number of years ago, and I have about 20,000 regular readers. It takes me about a day to prepare it, and someone on my staff a few hours to upload it to the e-mail newsletter service we use (“Emma” — at www.myemma.com — which we like for the ease of use and the quality of customer service and the friendly tone of their Web site).

But Emma is one of dozens — if not hundreds — of many reasonably priced online e-mail newsletter services. The biggest is probably Constant Contact (www.constantcontact.com) but you’ll find many others. Check the bottom of e-mail newsletters you receive to see which e-mail services other businesses you know are using.

These automated online e-mail newsletter services handle many of the functions for you. They perform all the technical aspects of sending out your newsletter, so you don’t have to deal with software — all you need is an Internet connection. They continually clean up your mailing list, deleting people who choose to unsubscribe, evaluating any “bounce backs.” They’ll put up links on your Web site (and/or others’ Web sites) so people can sign up to receive your newsletter, making it easy to gather and maintain your mailing list.

In addition to the technical aspects, these online services also have newsletter templates, making it fast and easy to design your newsletter. They can provide suggestions on how to improve the response you get to your e-mail mailings. Moreover, these online services generally provide a great deal of information about how well your newsletter is doing — who’s opening the newsletter, how many people are clicking on which links, and so on. This gives you the ability to keep experimenting to continually improve the effectiveness of your newsletter.

If you’re thinking of launching an e-mail newsletter, here are a few handy tips to keep in mind:

+ Give readers a reason to open it: Include meaningful, useful content, discounts, or notices of sales.

+ Keep it relatively short. People have limited time. The recipient needs to be able to get something valuable from your newsletter in less than a minute.

+ Send it regularly. Once a month or every two weeks is ideal. More than that is probably overkill, and any less than quarterly, they’ll forget about you.

+ Make sure your subject line promises value to the reader. The value can be a financial incentive ($25 cash back) or, more likely, it can be information that a reader might find useful (seven weight-loss tips). Studies have shown subject lines with fewer than 50 characters are best.

+ Avoid subject lines that will get you blocked. Spam filters block subject lines with words like “free” or dollar signs $$$ or all caps. Be careful or your mail won’t go through.

+ Use intriguing or inviting headlines. It’s not particularly exciting to just see “This month’s news” or “This month’s specials.” Instead, indicate what they’ll find right in the headline. “This month’s Special — 50% off all Outdoor Furniture.”

+ Keep your branding. Make sure your company name is very visible. Use the same colors, fonts, and taglines you use in the rest of your branding.

+ Only send it to people who’ve signed up. This is called “Opt-In” and most e-mail newsletter services will only send to your e-mail list if people have signed up to receive it — or have given you their business card.

+ Provide an “unsubscribe” option. Once again, this is required by most e-mail services — and it’s the law. Otherwise, people are just going to block you as a sender.

E-mail newsletters are an easy and inexpensive way to keep in touch with customers and prospects. Try it for your company!

(Opinions expressed in columns do not necessarily reflect those of The Eureka Reporter or its staff.)