Small Business Resource Power Point Series How to Avoid Your Marketing Messages Being Labelled as Spam

Are Your s Getting Through? In a bid to prevent spam, ISP’s are also junking legitimate messages. It may surprise you to learn that around 12% of s do not arrive in the intended recipients inbox.

Delivery Statistics

Are You in the Dark? Mail that goes straight into the recipients ‘junk’ folder, will not generate a bounce-back message. Neither will you be informed if the ISP accepts your message, then decides it looks like spam, and deletes it.

Consequences of Non-Delivery Any marketing that does not even get seen by your customers is of course going to impact on your profits. Also consider your customer relations. Missed newsletters or statements will not inspire confidence in your company.

Content-based Filters Used by ISP’s to pick up s that look like spam. These filters work by picking up keywords spammers typically use. Word to avoid include: ‘free’, ‘valued customer’, ‘click below’, and CAPITALISED WORDS, especially in the header.

Volume Based Filters If the sending mail server exceeds a certain limit, s may be deleted or sent straight to the ‘junk’ folder. Volume may also be determined by bandwidth, so it’s a good idea to keep your messages to a reasonable size.

Invalid Addresses In addition to volume demands, ISP’s also keep a record of whether you try to send to a large amount of invalid addresses. Keep your lists up to date and remove all addresses which have been bounced back to minimise volume demand.

Blacklists A blacklist is a list of IP addresses which are associated with spammers. There are many different blacklists in use and they all seem to have slightly different rules about what constitutes a spammer!

Stay Free of Blacklists The best general rule to follow to stay free of blacklists is to have an unsubscribe option at the bottom of your , and also on your website. Use ‘confirmed opt-in’, that is, you send the customer an confirming they have signed up to receive mailings from you when they join.

Renting Lists If you rent lists it’s well worth doing a bit or detective work on the seller first. Sign up for the list as a subscriber. Did you get confirmation, are you swamped with mail, and, does the unsubscribe option actually work?

Monitor Set up mail accounts with the top 10 or 15 ISP’s, add these addresses to your mailing list then check that your mail is getting through. It’s also a good idea to keep up to date with the anti-spam community. Google newsgroups is a good place to start.

Conclusion  Avoid keywords such as free and valued customer  Avoid punctuation such as ££ or !!!  Remove invalid addresses from your lists  Monitor your mailings  Include an unsubscribe option in your mailings

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