Julie Katz from Forrester Research just released a report titled, "The Secret to Email Deliverability."

"Ensuring that email messages make it to the inbox continues to be a critical challenge for email marketers, particularly as spam volumes increase and Internet service providers (ISPs) change their guidelines for which messages get delivered. Marketers who follow email marketing best practices have a better chance of getting their messages to the right place, especially if they also embrace basic deliverability tools, analyze the return on investment (ROI) of their delivery efforts, and take a handson approach to deliverability management. Forrester also expects that email delivery will become less troubling as reputation management improves."

But don't let the catchy title fool you - it really should be titled, "The Basics of Email Deliverability." This 4 page report provides a high level overview of the most common best practices around building your list, personalizing content and frequency for each subscriber, and list hygiene.

This would be useful for someone who is brand new to email marketing and wanted to get an idea where to start. It could also be helpful to show to an executive who knows nothing about email as a justification for why you want to hire an email service provider.

If you can't afford to pay $279 for a 4 page report, you might want to look at ReturnPath's free white papers.