There are plenty of programs and systems available to help you market your business. Many of them are excellent at driving traffic to your website. The problem for many small business owners is these things can be expensive – really expensive in some cases.

If you don’t have the budget or the desire to hire a service or purchase a program to push prospects toward your products or services, there are several things you can do to advertise and promote your business without costing you big bucks. In fact, they can be free – or nearly free.

One of these ways is through email marketing. If you learn how to write an effective email, you can parlay that talent into a list-building tool to grow your business quickly and inexpensively. The only expense involved will be for an autoresponder service (which can be found for about $20 a month) and your time. Once you have the techniques down, the time investment will be quite small.

Here are some tips to keep in mind when it comes time to start your own email marketing campaign.

• The first step in writing an effective email campaign is writing a powerful headline. In an email, the headline is what your reader sees in the subject line. Face it, if your customer is not intrigued by your headline, they won’t open your email. They will just hit delete and move on through their inbox.

A good headline must capture your reader’s attention. You want something intriguing, but try to avoid going completely over the top. A question is often a good hook. You can also try a teaser into the information included inside the email.

• Another thing guaranteed to catch your reader’s eye in an email subject line is their name. Most websites use an autoresponder to capture their prospects name and email address. The autoresponder form can usually be customized to gather as much or as little information from your readers as you choose. You’ll need their email address, of course, but consider adding a field asking their first name. You probably don’t need much more information than these two items, but these two are critical.

When you capture your prospects first name, you can then insert their name into your email headline. Instead of saying, “Hey, I want to tell you something” you can say, “Hey, Joe, I want to tell you something.” Which one do you think will result in more people opening your email? You’re right – the one personalized with the reader’s name.

• Here’s another tip to craft an effective email for marketing your business. Keep it simple. Stick to one message in your email. If you have several things to tell your prospect list, then the one message might be “Come to the site for lots of new information.”

If you want to highlight a new product or service your business is providing, then the message should be “Hey, here’s this new product and this is what it will do to make your life easier or better.”

The point is, don’t try to tell several stories in one email. It will wind up kicking in “information overload” and your prospect is likely to delete your message without taking any action due to overwhelm.

There are more things you can do to create an effective email message, but if you do just these three things consistently, you will build your business quickly and nearly effortlessly without the need for high costs.