SmallBusinessNewz

Like the horror film genre, email marketing often gets a bad rap. It is understandably misunderstood by many with the ungodly amounts of spam flooding inboxes across the universe.

Believe it or not though, there is still such a thing as legitimate email marketing, and as an unfortunate side-effect of all of that spam, it is often a struggle to get these legitimate messages through to their targets due to overly sensitive spam filters.

It is a battle that email marketers face every day, and most seasoned professionals in this industry are well aware of the following points, but if you are new to the game or have been considering stepping into it, there are a few things you should keep in mind before getting your feet wet.

Keywords

Usually, when you think of keywords in online marketing, you think of words that you want to use in association with your campaign. With email marketing, however, the opposite is actually true. There are certain keywords that it is better to avoid because they will raise your "spam points" thus making it harder for your message to get delivered without ending up in the spam folder.

It is hard to pinpoint an entire list of these flag-words, but there are programs online like Aweber and Habeas that will allow you to test your messages, and they will normally alert you as to what words in your message are causing your spam score to increase. More obvious examples of flag-words include adult language, Viagra, and things of that nature, but there are also common marketing phrases included such as "Click Here" that tend to get flagged.

Images

Having too many images in your message can increase your likeliness of ending up in the spam folder. That's not to say you can't include images. That would be ridiculous, but you need to make sure that in the text to image ratio, that the amount of text is much higher.

HTML

If you are sending an HTML message, than the same rule applies as for images. You must have more text than HTML code or you are likely to get flagged as spam.

The more "correct" your code is the better. You want to use valid HTML (you can learn more about HTML validation from the W3C), otherwise your message is likely to not display correctly in some email clients. Remember, not everyone uses the same one as you. That is why it is also a good idea to test your message in as many as possible.

The CAN-SPAM Act

Make sure and familiarize yourself with the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 to be sure that you are meeting the legal requirements of email marketing. This includes things like only sending to people who opt-in, or choose to receive your messages. Double opt-in options are even better. When they have to confirm that they've opted in, there is less chance of any misunderstanding. It also includes making sure to give the recipient instructions on how to opt-out, or unsubscribe from further messages.

If you keep the above points in mind, you are more likely to get your email messages delivered, and that is one of the greatest obstacles to overcome with any email marketing campaign.

Perhaps in the future, we will discuss ways to improve your actual messages to better convert sales. Is there anything you would like to add about getting your email messages delivered?