Friday, October 3, 2008

How to get through the spam filters

Creating a powerful newsletter to market your business doesn’t do any good if it looks like SPAM and/or ends up in a spam folder. Many spam filters will automatically delete or move to a folder anything that it deems as spam. Your goal must be to avoid having this happen to your carefully created newsletters.

Spam filters look at your e-mail messages and the words within it and compares it to the list of spam e-mails already identified. It is uncertain of all the science behind how all the spam filters work, and the creators keep this a secret, because the spammers would figure out how to get around them.

However; there are some elements that will most likely make your messages look like spam and therefore go into a spam or junk folder.

Make sure your newsletters and marketing messages follow these suggestions:

DON'T USER ALL CAPS in the subject line because it increases your changes of going into a spam folder.

Avoid words like “Free”, “Viagra”, “Casino”, “Mortgage”, “Sex”, etc… in the subject line too.

Don’t use repeating dollar signs $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.

Be careful with punctuation in subject lines - content filters are counting any punctuation, particularly exclamation points and question marks, as spam indicators. Use them sparingly.

Watch commands or calls to action - many spam subject lines put verbs as calls to action in the subject line. Those most often include "Get," "Open," "Download," "Buy," "Save," Make, "Take" and "Respond."

Be careful with pronouns – more and more spam is coming with "You," "Your" and "I" as the first word in the subject line and is quickly being filtered. Use these sparingly.

Don’t use text messaging talk – stay away from using LOL, TBD, ETC… when sending your newsletters and marketing messages.

There are a lot of elements you need to know and keep track of in order to get your newsletters to be read. If you don’t have time to stay on top of the many changes and strategies, let us help you.
Call 740-824-4842 or visit our web site at http://www.newsletterville.com/

Or go to http://newsletterville.constantcontact.com/

In our next Blog post I will discuss How to put your HTML newsletter on your web site.

Got Newsletter? Need help getting your marketing up and running? Contact us today.
Take a look at some of the newsletters that we have created for our clients.
Go to: http://www.newsletterville.com/page2.html

Also, you will find over 10 Free Newsletter Templates to use for your newsletters.
Free templates can be found at:
http://www.newsletterville.com/free_newsletter_templates.htm

Call or e-mail if you have any questions.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Gary 740-824-4842 ~ Gary@newsletterville.com

PS - sign up for our Free Newsletter and receive 3 Free Special Reports...Instantly. Click here.
Free Special Reports
  1. Free Report 1- 4 Time Saving E-Mail Tips.htm
  2. Free Report 2- Do’s & Don’ts For E-Mail Subject Lines
  3. Free Report 3- How To Encourage Visitors To Your Web Site

Plus an added report on the CanSpam law.

PSS – we have boiler plate newsletter templates too. Includes content, formatting, graphics, and layout. For the do it yourself style newsletter.
Go to: http://www.newsletterville.com/boilerplate_newsletters.htm