Marketing via email can be very productive. Indeed, many Internet marketers make more money from their email list than they do from their web pages. But, with “open rates” and “click through rates” going down the whole time, how can you make money from your list? Well, as always there is a psychological component. New research suggests that the main reason for opening an email marketing message is because you trust the person who sent it. In other words, the main task of anyone engaged in email marketing is to build trust with their audience. You do that in several ways – looking and being professional, having physical addresses and contact details on all your pages and messages, as well as using recognised, secure systems for everything you do. But there is more to trust than this. Psychological research at the University of Columbia, New York showed several years ago that one of the main components of trust is showing your audience you care for them. In other words, everything you do must be from their perspective; the more you focus on your audience needs specifically, the more you will be trusted. And the most trust you gain, the more emails you’ll get opened.