Sure, it’s the most powerful word in advertising, but the effectiveness of the word “free” really depends on what you’re getting. If you’ve ever been to a yard sale and seen a big pile of stuff for free, you know exactly what I mean.

That’s why companies offering “complimentary” visits and “free” consultations do themselves and their product a huge disservice by not reminding customers and clients the value of “free.” If a new customer doesn’t know an hour of your time costs $100 or a product costs $25, are they going to be more responsive or less responsive if they want to make a purchase or retain your services–especially if you just gave it away for nothing?

That’s not to say a free consultation or sample is not a great way to introduce potential customers. Just remember that when you say “free” add some text saying, “ordinarily a $___ value,” or something to that effect. This way you’re still giving something away to lure business, but you’re not devaluing your livelihood either.

For you people with your mind in the trash, this is not what it sounds like. Well, in a way it is. While using Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express, you can permanently delete an e-mail by holding down the shift key and pressing “Delete”—bypassing the “Deleted Items” or “trash” altogether.

Most people are a little hesitant to empty their “Deleted Items” folder, even though they know 90 percent of what’s in there will never be needed. The other side of that is you don’t want to have thousands of items in that folder either. By “power deleting” items you know you’ll never need, like spam, the number of number of items in your “Deleted Items” folder grows at a much slower pace.

Sure, emptying your “Deleted Items” every two or three weeks compared to every week may not sound like much. But if it reduces your paranoia about permanently removing deleted items, it’s well worth it.

A question anybody who puts out a newsletter should ask. Most folks in business receive enough e-mail without adding more to the in box unless it’s something that offers value. To make sure your newsletter doesn’t fall into the “Nuisance” category, you need to follow a few simple guidelines.

Make sure the focus of your articles is on things that actually affect your readers. Better yet, offer a solution to a problem they might encounter. For example, the article on Spell Check in this newsletter. While it may not be on the top 10 list of problems you might run into, it’s a nice-to-know feature that will help.

Do not oversell or even try to sell your services with your newsletter. The idea of the newsletter is to inform. By offering helpful advice and information, you are subtly selling your products or services by demonstrating your knowledge and expertise.

Keep it brief. As stated earlier, people have a limited time and attention span for most e-mail newsletters. Do not overwhelm them with 2000-word articles. Try to keep it under 500, even better if it’s between 100 and 300 words.

The death sentence to any e-mail newsletter is scrolling. So make sure to post longer articles you do offer on your Web site or blog with a link from the e-newsletter.

Always give readers the choice of opting out. You never want to be associated with spam. Unless you give readers the choice of receiving your newsletter, you will be.

Finally, don’t be offended if not everybody reads the articles in your newsletter. Ideally, that would be the case, but it’s not critical to the success of your newsletter. Just by publishing your newsletter, you’re putting your product or service to the front of the brain of your readers, even if that puts you in the “Deleted” folder.