If all your careful planning, designing, and writing are to have an impact, they need to get to their desired audience. Unfortunately, there are often barriers to overcome, including spam filters, blacklists, wrong addresses, and other snafus.
Here are some of the top issues to be aware of and the best way to avoid having your mail blocked or bounced.
Battle the bounce
Can the spam
Spam is defined as sending unsolicited email to a group of people. An unsolicited personal message to one person is not spam. Nor is mail sent to a group of individuals who requested to receive mail.
But people can forget that they signed up for your newsletter or other mailings. If recipients don?t recognize you as someone whose mail they opted into, they may click the Junk button of their mail software. If your mail gets reported as spam enough times, an internet service provider could block your entire domain from reaching their customers in the future.
This is why it is important to get permission and get that permission refreshed from time to time. See the first few tips in Set your strategy for more detail.
Naturally the best approach is to avoid getting labeled as spam in the first place.
Know the law
In addition to being widely disliked, the sending of spam is illegal in the United States. The primary legislation for this was the CAN-SPAM act of 2003. It includes several provisions that you should know and follow:
- Don?t use false or misleading header info, including originating domain name and email address
- Don?t use a deceptive Subject: line.
- Do let recipients opt out of future mails from that address; honor those requests within 10 business days.
- Do identify commercial mail as advertising.
- Do include a valid physical postal address.
For more information, consult the compliance guide from the Federal Trade Commission?s Bureau of Consumer Protection.
Be filter friendly
Even if you obey the law, your mail can still run afoul of various email filters intended to block spam. Many of these filters analyze the content of mail to make their determination.
The following guidelines can help you avoid getting slapped with the spam label.
1. Avoid flashy formats and bogus spelling
Don?t use bright red fonts, lots of colors, all caps, or multiple exclamation points. And don?t use try to evade spam filters with alternative spellings like m0rtg4g3 or v1agra.
2. Use spammy terms sparingly
Spam filters look for certain common phrases like act now, get paid, call now, million dollars, amazing, get paid, don?t delete, satisfaction guaranteed, limited time, click here to unsubscribe, and many more.
There is no comprehensive list of filter-triggering words that will work with every internet service provider. But you can find some of the more common ones in this article from Web Marketing Today.
Some of these phrases may be difficult to avoid. Use them if you must, but try to keep them to a minimum.
3. Don?t use dummy text
When sending a test mail, it?s tempting to fill it with meaningless placeholder text, like the famous ? ?Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet? passage. Unfortunately this kind of filler can trigger some spam filters. Consequently, you should always do your testing with the actual language you intend to send out.
4. Mix text and graphics
Some spam attempts to get around text searches by putting their entire message in a graphic. But spam filters today are wise to that gimmick and could block your own mail if you use nothing but images. Consequently, include both words and pictures in your mail.
5. Watch your language
Never use insulting, threatening, harassing, or offensive language.
6. Use clean HTML
Believe it or not, some spam filters even check for poorly coded HTML. Double-check your work and make sure you don?t have empty title tags like or any text below the closing tag.
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