B to B has an interesting article: “Election ’08: The candidates’ e-mail errors”

It lists four mistakes:

1. Signup problems (including Obama’s site’s demand that you contribute!!)
2. Lack of welcome messages
3. Lack of relevance
4. Obama’s list uses CAPTCHA on the unsubscribe page, something that would be illegal for you to do

Really, these things are Email Marketing 101:

1. Make it easy for the subscriber to sign-up
2. Let the subscriber know sign-up was successful
3. Send messages the subscriber thinks are relevant
4. Make it easy for the subscriber to leave

There are more difficult things, at least one of which (data verification) caused a small firestorm in the deliverability blogosphere not long ago. (You really shouldn’t be emailing “Stupid Poopypants” now should you?) But, if you can get those four things down, you will really be doing better than at least 80% of your competition.