I recently sent a work-related email to a colleague with some time sensitive information in it. Not being in email marketing mode, I included the words “time sensitive” in the subject line and hit send. Several days later when I hadn’t heard back, I called him to see if he had received my message. He hadn’t. After a little digging, he found it—yep—in the spam folder.

Deliverability is a serious issue for brands, not just because legitimate messages get siphoned out of the inbox and into the spam folder, but also because your sender reputation is at stake.

What Happens When Someone Marks Your Email as Spam?
When a subscriber marks your email as spam, his ISP will block future messages from you. Your email service provider will also keep track of this information, making it possible for ISPs to make judgments about future emails you send to other recipients. Every time someone hits the spam button, it chips away at your sender reputation, making it harder for you to reach your subscribers.

Why Legitimate Emails End Up In the Spam Folder
Spam filters are all well and good for keeping out the baddies, but what about your legitimate messages? What mistakes are you making and how can you fix them?

• You’re including questionable material in the subject line. Spammers use tactics like all caps, multiple exclamation marks, and key phrases (like my “time sensitive” email above) to get people to click.Fix: Create subject lines that communicate message content without using gimmicks.

• You’re not communicating the right expectations to subscribers. If you send messages more often than expected or send valueless content, your subscribers will get irritated and send you careening into the spam folder.Fix: Communicate clearly what types of messages you’ll be sending and how often. Each message should include valuable content such as special offers, useful information, or sales announcements.

• You’re using shady list-building practices. Purchased lists often include spam trap messages and closed accounts. Too many of these bounces will destroy your sender reputation. Not only that, it’s bad business practice.Fix: Use double opt-ins to build your list, ensuring that each subscriber legitimately meant to sign up and knows what to expect.

A strong sender reputation is essential for keeping your legitimate messages out of the spam folder. Focus on providing valuable content, presenting it in a reputable format, and keeping an eye on your email metrics in order to deal with potential problems before they spiral out of control.

Plenty has been said about how to keep email marketing messages out of the spam trap, how to keep subscribers from clicking the spam button, and how to stay relevant. But underneath all this practical advice is a deeper question: What constitutes spam in the first place? Most people define spam as any marketing message they don’t want. Retailers on the other hand, operate under a much narrower definition. Let’s take a look at what constitutes spam both technically and practically, and how you can avoid earning the spam designation.

Sender Perspective

As a sender, your definition of spam differs dramatically from that of the recipient. While there will be some gray areas, most spam falls into these three categories:

• CAN-SPAM act violations—The CAN-SPAM Act sets forth guidelines for email marketing messages which include accurate from lines, unsubscribe mechanisms, opt-out compliance, and accurate headers. Messages that violate these guidelines are spam in the most technical sense of the word.
• Unsolicited marketing messages—While not technically spam according to the CAN-SPAM Act, unsolicited messages (purchased email lists) are considered to be spam by most recipients and senders, rendering the usefulness of such lists virtually zilch.
• Third-party affiliate messages—You may have a check box on your email sign-up page that gives permission for third-party affiliates to send messages to that subscriber. But if the box is automatically checked or the recipient doesn’t remember signing up for such emails, these messages will also be considered spam.

Subscriber Perspective

It’s much harder to provide a concrete definition of spam from the subscriber’s perspective. Basically, if a subscriber doesn’t want a particular marketing message to appear in his inbox, he’s likely to hit the spam button and send all future messages from that sender to the spam folder. Spam, in the eyes of the subscriber, is any marketing message he doesn’t currently want, even if he initially signed up to receive your emails.

It’s All About Relevance

Because subscribers take such a broad view of spam, it’s up to email marketers to gain a subscriber’s trust so he’ll keep reading their messages. The most effective way to do this is to make your messages relevant. If a subscriber knows that your content will provide something that benefits him—information, discounts, or special offers—he will look forward to receiving your messages rather than deleting them or designating them as spam.

At eConnect Email, we have years of experience helping our clients stay out of spam traps. Use our subscriber list management tools, segmentation options, and design templates to create email messages that will keep your subscribers wanting more.

Ever wondered how email messages get flagged as spam? For every email campaign you create, there is a possibility that up to 20% of the emails you send will wind up flagged as spam. The responsibility can be shared by indiscriminate spam filters and poorly constructed newsletters, but the bottom line for businesses is determining what factors will doom your email campaign to the spam folder and how you can prevent it from happening.

Even legitimately requested confirmation emails can be tagged as spam if they make these mistakes:

1.     Include too many references to typical spam topics.

Spammers love to entice readers with free stuff, making lots of money, mortgage pitches, urgent information and money back guarantees. When a spam filter detects this wording in an email, it assigns point values for each reference. If you must refer to these topics, use them sparingly in order to stay under the “This is spam” limit.

2.     Incorporate spammy wording or formatting.

Phrases such as “free gift,” “once in a lifetime,” or “click here” all receive spam points, especially when written in all caps or accompanied by lots of exclamation points. Test your email for effectiveness using eConnect Email’s inbox previews tools to evaluate each message for spammy red flags.

3.     Fail to use recipient’s full name.

Most mail servers will give you a free pass out of the spam folder if you have been added to the user’s address book, if they have emailed you, or if you use their full name in your email. By requiring recipients to provide both first and last names when they sign up for your newsletter, you can ensure that your messages reach their inbox.

4.     Purchase an email list.

This is the cardinal sin of email marketing. Not only is it unethical business practice, but it will also result in lots of bounces and spam complaints. Instead, collect your emails using double opt-in procedures to ensure that the majority of your customers will be expecting your newsletter. At eConnect Email, we take your email list seriously, and we’ve provided a variety of tools that will keep it up to date and targeted, including custom fields and demographics, individual contact histories, suppression lists, and effective list cleansing.

5.     Fail to include an unsubscribe link

The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 requires businesses to include a working unsubscribe link in every email. The link also benefits you by helping target your email list toward those customers most likely to read and remember your messages.

Takeaway

Spam filters hold the power of life and death for your email marketing campaign, but you can stay on their good side by acting upon the five suggestions above when putting together your next email campaign.

Given the amount of spam constantly battering inboxes, ISPs are understandably cracking down. And while most people are thrilled to have less spam, the 20% of legitimate emails that never make it may be cause for concern. If you are an email marketer you have a vested interest in practicing habits that will increase your sending reputation and place you in the 80% success category.

Five things determine sending reputation: volume, complaint rates, bounce rate, spam trap hits, and correct authentication. When it comes to monitoring these all-important categories you have two choices. You can either do it yourself or have professionals (like us!) do it for you.

So what if your score is already sub-par? Here are several steps you can take in repairing your reputation.

Take Action on your User Count
Want to prevent complaints and resolve your unknown user count? Stick to emailing active users who want to get your emails, and always use double opt in for your registrations. Using old contact lists is a sure-fire way to injure your user count. The unknown recipients may either delete the email or send it to spam. Bounce rates always drop when you contact people you know are interested, and spam traps will be much less likely.

Prevent Complaints
The first step in preventing complaints is understanding why you’re getting them. New users often complain when they do not receive the information that they thought they’d get. If the source of your complaints is users who have received your emails for a long time, you may simply need to delete them from your list. If they don’t want your emails and continue to get them, they will complain.

Set up Feedback Loops
If you have all of your feedback loops set up for your sending IPs it is unlikely that you will resend to complaining users. If complaints are still high after setting up the loops, the problem may be the frequency of your emails. Even interested users hate getting too many emails. Back off on your frequency and see if complaints fall. If they do, you can then slowly increase your mailings until you find exactly the right frequency. What you want to achieve is your top ROI without lots of complaints.

Authentication
SPF and domain keys can be a great tool, depending on your list sizes. If you are using an ESP in your email marketing, they can help with authenticating the sender to organize and send emails on your behalf. If interested, ask your ESP for more information about the usefulness of SPF and domain keys.

While underappreciated, deliverability is crucial to the world of email marketing. If you need help in improving your deliverability, eConnect Email would be happy to assist you.

Don’t buy email lists! It’s wrong and it hurts your brand. If that’s not enough to stop you, then please remember the puppies! Don’t buy email lists…don’t kill puppies!

Do me a favor… for the sake of all respectable email marketers don’t use the word ‘blast’ when referencing email marketing.  It sounds so dirty.

The word just makes me cringe inside when someone talks about ‘e-blasing’ or ‘we’re going to blast out our email this week’.  Sure email marketing makes it convenient to get your message across to your subscribed list but where did this word come from?

Saying ‘e-blast’ to me is like saying ‘let’s have spam for dinner instead of steak’.  Unpleasant thoughts come to mind and leave me with a bad taste (excuse the pun).

Some of the various definitions of ‘blast’ include:

– A forcible stream of air, gas, or steam from an opening, especially one in a blast furnace to aid combustion.

– A violent explosion, as of dynamite or a bomb.

– A destructive or damaging influence.

– A violent verbal assault or outburst.

That said, let’s give email marketing a little respect and not talk about it like a bomb! A forcible stream of air! A violent verbal assault!  Not good.

Of course I’m jesting about this in a sense but all jokes aside, there is something about the connotation that completely undermines what email marketing is supposed to be.

Whether you are sending one-off emails or your monthly newsletter to your subscribers you are communicating to them through email, not blasting them haphazardly.

Email marketing needs a little more respect and choosing the right vocabulary can mean all the difference.  So, next time you would like to send a campaign let’s refer to it as a ‘deployment’ or even ‘we’re going to email our subscriber list this week’.

So as long as we play by the rules, keep our emails informative and not use the word ‘blast’ we can change the image of email marketing for those that think it’s still in the dark ages.

Eliminate ‘blast’ from your vocabulary!