Stay Out of the Spam Folder!

It doesn’t matter how great your e-newsletter or email ad is if it never makes it to its destination.  People have to actually read it!  Keep the following things in mind and it will make a difference in whether or not your emails are sent to the spam folder.

Although most industrial companies have their own email hosts or servers, there are still some smaller companies whose employees use Yahoo, MSN, Gmail and Hotmail.  If Yahoo gets too many spam complaints from people you’re sending email to, they’re not only going to stop sending your emails through to the people who marked you as spam – they’ll stop delivering your emails period.  Anyone with a Yahoo email address will not get any emails you send!  Not only that, Yahoo will also reject anything coming from your computer (your IP address.)  All the major servers do this . . .

FREE:  The word “free”, especially in all caps, is a red flag to spam filters.  That’s why occasionally you see emails where the word “free” has been written as F*R*E*E* or FR-EE.

ALL CAPS:  Writing a word or phrase in all caps occasionally is probably OK.  But if your entire message is all caps – watch out!

IMAGES:  If a significant portion of your message is an image, that’s a red flag.  Keep artwork at a minimum.

EMAIL SERVICES:  If you’re sending email blasts through a paid service that sends a lot of spam (somebody else’s) everything that comes from that service will be marked as spam (including YOUR emails.)  Servers with sophisticated spam filters will simply flag the entire service.  If you make sure your email service requires double opt-ins, this can help.