Train them to click links:
In all your messages no matter what it is your sending them or writing about you always want to have a link for them to click. whether its a blog post you've made, an article, or anything else, you always want them to click on a link to get to it. This is so that when you send promotions and links to sales pages they will be more likely to click on the link and be taken to a page that can market to them effectively. It's so easy to just close an e-mail or say "I'll check it out later". If you can get them out of the e-mail and onto a website you're going to have a much higher success rate when selling to them.
Tell them what you want them to do:
If you want them to click a link, tell them to click the link.
If you want them to buy something, tell them to buy it.
I know this may seem too straight forward for some people but the truth is that people need to be told what to do. Also when you try to get people to do things other ways then directly they'll often see right through your efforts and lose respect for you.
As long as you're confident about what you are telling people they will for the most part follow along. Most people don't have time to research everything and are usually thankful to have someone that knows what they're doing to tell them what to do next.
Give them a system with step by step instructions:
Another thing people love is to have everything laid out in a simple to follow system. Anytime you can give people step by step instructions you're going to have a much higher percentage of people following those instructions. The clearer you are about what you want them to do and the easier you make it for them the better.
Get them to expect the sales pitch:
Subscribers to your list should always expect to be "sold" something. A lot of people get into e-mail marketing and are so scared to pitch anything to their list because they're worried about someone getting upset or unsubscribing. So they send a bunch of content only e-mails with no sales pitch and then when they finally do pitch something their worst fears come true. This is because they've done it all wrong. It's a self fulfilling prophecy, the exact thing they are worried about happening, happens because of their own fear of it happening.
If you're always selling something, then people expect you to do that. If that's something that offends them they can unsubscribe right away. However since they are used to it and you've set the precedent from the beginning they probably won't even notice and won't be bothered by it. It's only when you do something out of the ordinary that people take notice.
Sending e-mails regularly:
You need to send regularly to your list. Your initial autoresponder series should go out once or twice a week. After that, you should continue to e-mail them at least once a week. You've worked hard to get them to pay attention to you so the last thing you want to do is lose all that effort by not having consistent communications with them. Of course, you don't want to over do this and annoy people with 2 or 3 e-mails a day but one or two a week should be fine. I wouldn't do any less than one e-mail every 7 to 10 days, anything less and they will tend to forget about you.
Consistency is Key:
You're building a relationship with your subscribers with every e-mail you send to them. You want to maintain your same "style" in all your e-mails. You need to do what's going to be most comfortable and sustainable for you. If you try to write in a different style than is "you" then you're going to have a hard time writing your e-mails and its also going to show to your subscribers. You need to find your own writing style and then stick to it.
Unsubscribers:
Having someone unsubscribe from your list isn't necessarily a bad thing. If someone isn't interested in hearing from you then they probably wouldn't open or read your e-mails anyway. Its also better to have them unsubscribe from your list now then have them stay on it and possibly send spam complaints against you or other negative things.
Someone that unsubscribes is saying "I don't want to be on his list anymore" this means that the more unsubscribers you have the more responsive your list is going to be. The people that don't want to be on it aren't and only the people that actually want to hear from you will be. This can be a great selling point when doing a Joint Venture with another marketer because you'll have higher conversions and a more responsive list.
Another thing to consider about unsubscribers is that they don't always leave for good. I can't even count the times that I've had someone unsubscribe from one of my lists only to re-join it shortly after. I'd actually rather not even have someone that isn't responsive to my e-mails on my list.
So don't worry about unsubscribes so much. It's all in the way you look at it. If you're consistently adding new people to your list and consistently growing, learning and improving then you'll have absolutely nothing to worry about.
Build a Relationship:
The more you can connect and build a relationship with your readers the more responsive they are going to be to what you have to offer. People love a story, they also love to know that you are "real". If you come across as just a nameless faceless person on the internet that's always trying to sell them something you're going to miss out on a LOT of sales.
By telling a little about yourself and letting people see that you're a real person that deals with the same real things that they deal with in life you're going to connect so much better with them.
If you make a good post in your blog, you can send an e-mail to your list telling them to go read it and ask them to leave comments.
You can also ask them to add you as a friend or contact on the different social media sites.
Building a relationship with your list can mean the difference between having a list that barely even makes any money, and having a wildly successful list that other marketers drool over.