Email Marketing Tips: 3 Ways to Avoid Spam Filters
http://www.seo-marketing-articles.com/articles/3564/1/Email-Marketing-Tips-3-Ways-to-Avoid-Spam-Filters/Page1.html
Henry Cass
Henry Cass is a best practices activist and advocate for Benchmark Email ( http://www.benchmarkemail.com/resources/OtherResource/Email-Newsletter ) a leading Web and permission-based service for sending newsletters By Henry Cass
Published on 10/8/2009
E-mail marketing is the most efficient, timely, and attractive way of reaching out to your clientele Newsletters in particular can give a personalized touch to the recipient, by including information that might be of specific interest to them
E-mail marketing is the most efficient, timely, and attractive way of reaching out to your clientele. Newsletters in particular can give a personalized touch to the recipient, by including information that might be of specific interest to them. Including graphics, videos and special offers are all ways to draw the attention of your reader and keep them there.
After all the effort you put into designing a newsletter, it would be a waste if it didn’t reach your clients. There are several ways to manage to avoid this issue – keep these in mind while creating your newsletters, as well as before sending them off.
Tip 1: Avoid Certain Words and Coding
The subject line of your e-mail often gets scanned for words that are typically found in spam. Be sure to use words that cannot be interpreted as possible spam – the words “free,” or “cash,” often causes e-mails to get filtered into spam. Also, slightly abnormal punctuation, such as all caps or lots of consecutive exclamation marks, or other non-standard construction, would attract the attention of the spam filter. On a similar note, the text in the body of the e-mail should also not contain any of these potential pitfalls.
Your HTML code is also a source that attracts the attention of the spam filters. Any errors, a particular style of formatting, or the use of JavaScript, can all cause your newsletter to get flagged. It is also important to keep the ratio of words to images high: in other words, very little copy and many images or one large image will be a sure way to get the message separated out. Keep a reasonable balance of both to make sure the message is in a safe zone for delivery.
Tip 2: Use SPAM checkers when in doubt
There is also free software available that will check your HTML newsletter and rate it and give you a recommendation about how likely it is to get filtered into spam. One such software is SPAMAssassin.org . The software will evaluate your message on a scale of 0 to 5, 0 being the rating that would allow your message to pass through the filters without any trouble. If you find particularly good software that serves this function, it is likely that it will also give suggested changes that you can make to your Newsletter to fix any potential flagged items.
Tip 3: Have clients add your “From” address
One final way to improving your delivery rate is to request that your clients add your “From” address to their list of contacts. Some e-mail services do not accept e-mails from unknown senders, and hence the message again gets filtered into spam. If the address is added however, it increases the chances of its acceptance in the inbox. Also, it’s important to periodically update your e-mail list and clean out any incorrect addresses or no longer valid addresses. If you repeatedly send to a list that contains these kinds of addresses, the chances of future e-mails getting delivered are less.
Keep these few tips in mind and your newsletter will in all likelihood reach your clients!
After all the effort you put into designing a newsletter, it would be a waste if it didn’t reach your clients. There are several ways to manage to avoid this issue – keep these in mind while creating your newsletters, as well as before sending them off.
Tip 1: Avoid Certain Words and Coding
The subject line of your e-mail often gets scanned for words that are typically found in spam. Be sure to use words that cannot be interpreted as possible spam – the words “free,” or “cash,” often causes e-mails to get filtered into spam. Also, slightly abnormal punctuation, such as all caps or lots of consecutive exclamation marks, or other non-standard construction, would attract the attention of the spam filter. On a similar note, the text in the body of the e-mail should also not contain any of these potential pitfalls.
Your HTML code is also a source that attracts the attention of the spam filters. Any errors, a particular style of formatting, or the use of JavaScript, can all cause your newsletter to get flagged. It is also important to keep the ratio of words to images high: in other words, very little copy and many images or one large image will be a sure way to get the message separated out. Keep a reasonable balance of both to make sure the message is in a safe zone for delivery.
Tip 2: Use SPAM checkers when in doubt
There is also free software available that will check your HTML newsletter and rate it and give you a recommendation about how likely it is to get filtered into spam. One such software is SPAMAssassin.org . The software will evaluate your message on a scale of 0 to 5, 0 being the rating that would allow your message to pass through the filters without any trouble. If you find particularly good software that serves this function, it is likely that it will also give suggested changes that you can make to your Newsletter to fix any potential flagged items.
Tip 3: Have clients add your “From” address
One final way to improving your delivery rate is to request that your clients add your “From” address to their list of contacts. Some e-mail services do not accept e-mails from unknown senders, and hence the message again gets filtered into spam. If the address is added however, it increases the chances of its acceptance in the inbox. Also, it’s important to periodically update your e-mail list and clean out any incorrect addresses or no longer valid addresses. If you repeatedly send to a list that contains these kinds of addresses, the chances of future e-mails getting delivered are less.
Keep these few tips in mind and your newsletter will in all likelihood reach your clients!