When running a campaign with an online presence, having a clean email list is vital. Contacting voters by email allows for direct conversation, breaking news alerts, and fundraising drives.

The Washington Post states that President-elect Obama has 10 million email addresses in his list. Out of those 10 million, 3 million donated. That's unbelievable!

1) The Obama campaign followed the cardinal rule of email lists: make sure it's clean. Do not buy lists, do not keep email addresses on file if people have already unsubscribed, DO NOT SPAM!

2) Their messaging was perfect for them to have 3 million people on that list donating. Let's look at the math - a good open rate for each email blast is 30%-40%. To get a donation from each open, 30% is a good number. So if Obama sent out an email to 10 million people and if 3 million opened it, it would be good if out of those 3 million - if 1 million donated. Obama was able to triple that amount. (Of course, I'm combining one time email blasts and all together - it's difficult to figure out what exactly makes a person donate, whether it's an email they can strongly relate to or a successive string of emails that finally make them say, "Okay, now I'll donate.")

There's a lot to learn from President-elect Obama's email list and email strategy.