E-Mail is still the most widely used Internet tool available today. Virtually everyone who has Internet access has an email account, and for the Internet Marketer this opens up a huge possibility for more business.

Unfortunately, over the past few years lots of people have abused this amazing marketing tool with their unacceptable spam. Fortunately, more and more people worldwide are taking action against spam, and so the amount of spammers has drastically reduced.

In this article I'll explain how you can use this fantastic technology to your advantage, by simply following a few easy steps. The result is a powerful marketing system that will save lots of time and enable you to spend more time promoting and advertising your online business.

The first step - Get to know your email program!

Although all email programs basically do the same thing, there is still a lot of variety between them, and so it's very useful to get to know your email program.

Spending 30 minutes playing around with your email program is definitely worthwhile, and will enable you to familiarize yourself with all the individual features that your email program offers.

When you've spent time playing around with the features of your email program, you can move onto step 2.

The second step - Automation is the key to an organized business!

You aim should be to spend at least 90% of your time promoting and advertising your online business, and that's very difficult to do if you're spending lots of your time answering emails.

That's why an automated system is needed. Most email programs have a feature known as a 'filter' which basically looks at the email messages, and does certain actions based on the criteria of the message.

For instance, you can use a filter to automatically separate orders from general enquires. Using filters will save you time and effort, and will automatically separate your email messages into the right folders.

They even allow you to create your own desktop-based autoresponders. (A very efficient and time-saving tool)

The third step - Make your signature NOW!

A signature is a little message you attach to all outgoing mail that can contain sales info, special offers or contact info.

The greatest thing about a signature is that it gives you the chance to advertise your product or service to literally thousands of people.

Usually it comes in the form of a 4-8 line message attached to the end of an email.

On an average day I process up to 200 emails from people worldwide. If I attach the above signature to 200 emails every single day, that's 200 more prospects who get my sales message!

It really surprises me that many Internet Marketers still don't use signatures with their email messages.

Virtually every email program allows you to attach a signature. Now you don't have any excuses, so go ahead and start making some email signatures today, and generating more profits tomorrow!

The forth step - Create templates to save even more time!

If you're processing more than 10 emails a day, chances are you'll find that you're continuously replying to the same questions every day.

Why waste your time typing out the same text over and over again? With template files, you can call up a pre-made email template, and just fill in the bits that require personalization.

Instant replies without continuous typing! With a click of a button, you can call up a ready-made template. And best of all, you can use dozens of them to save lots of time.

Each email program works slightly different with template files, so I'd suggest looking through the program's help file for full information.

If you follow the above four tips, you'll find that you're able to spend less time answering emails and more time promoting your business.