It is important to know that 40% to 70% of all e-mail, that includes legitimate ones, is getting blocked by spam filters before anyone has the opportunity to read it, according to a recent article in Time Magazine.
In my opinion, e-mail marketing is still the killer app., but it takes ingenuity to get your marketing materials in front of your audience. Spam filters are making it difficult for us to ensure our e-mail gets to our intended targets.
Most spam filters search e-mails for words, phrases, and symbols that commonly appear in spam. If your e-mail has more than a certain number of these words, phrases, or symbols, the filter identifies it as spam and blocks delivery of the e-mail.
Here is a list of the 21 deadliest spam filter violations from Dori Friend of E-filtrate. Smart Marketers will want to avoid as many of these as possible.
1) Don’t ever send more then 250 emails concurrently to AOL
2) Don’t EVER embed an image in an email
3) Don’t use caps anywhere in your email, especially in your subject line
4) Don’t send an email without checking your Spam trigger word content**
5) Don’t use the word “remove,” use “unsubscribe”
6) Don’t start your subject line with “Dear…”
7) Don’t use Spam software to send email
8) Don’t use your PC as a server
9) Don’t forge headers
10) Don’t put ADV in your subject line
11) Don’t send an email without checking to see if you or your ISP is on a Blacklist
12) Don’t over use punctuation (just one!)
13) Don’t leave headers blank
14) Don’t use BCC to send emails (and certainly not CC)
15) Don’t over use Marketing Phrases
16) Don’t use the Priority option
17) Don’t change the time on your server so your email stays on top of the heap
18) Don’t overuse Hyperlinks
19) Don’t use a fake IP address to send email
20) Don’t use HTML (sorry)
21) Don’t waste time sending email without using e-filtrate 😉 e-filtrate is an
automated system that makes sense of all this.
** You can test these at e-filtrate by going here.
Here is an added BONUS!
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10 “Do’s” to get your email through the Spam Filters
1) Do put a date in your email subject line
2) Do be a newsletter
3) Do send your email from a trusted source
4) Do look and be legitimate
5) Do use the word FREE and not F*R*E*E
6) Do send regular text emails
7) Do have an unsubscribe link
8) Do say go here instead of click here
9) Do get on your customers white list
10) Do personalize your email with your customer’s name
Here’s a tool you help get your e-mail through the spam filters – by identifying the words most likely to trigger these filters:
When you visit this site, you can down load more details on these common mistakes and sign up for Dori’s newsletter.
I hope this helps you generate more success with your e-mail campaigns.