Email Marketing Tips - How to Avoid Being Flagged as SPAM Some of the best email marketing tips that I’ve gotten (aside from building the actual email list) were how to avoid being marked as SPAM. Being marked as SPAM (as opposed to HAM, the good kind of email) is the black mark of death for all email marketers. And once you’re on the blacklist, it’s pretty much over. You’ll have to build your email list from scratch. That’s why it’s important to know right off the bat how to avoid getting marked as SPAM and how to stay in the good zone and possibly get in the white list – emails that are always welcome and allowed into people’s inboxes. 1. Only send to people that signed up to receive your emails. SPAM mail is determined in a lot of ways. One of them is when a person marks your email as SPAM. It’s inevitable to have your mail marked as SPAM once or twice; but if the numbers build, your mail might start getting sent to the SPAM folder automatically. The best way to avoid this is to simply not send people mail that they didn’t ask to receive. This is why buying a ready-made email list can hurt your business more than it can help. 2. Use clean HTML when constructing emails A lot of SPAM mail are badly constructed and are filled with way too many images. Test your emails to make sure that they are well formatted and can be read by most (if not all) email carrier. It also wouldn’t hurt to include a simple text version of your message which usually indicates HAM mail and it’s great for clients who read mail on their mobiles. 3. Have a clear unsubscribe option Having a clear unsubscribe link might seem like the wrong thing to do but it’s always better to have people just unsubscribe to your newsletter than to have them mark your mail as SPAM. 4. Avoid ‘spammy’ words There is an official list of SPAM words on the internet but they’re actually pretty obvious. Some of them are: “FREE” “Offer Expires” “Cash” “Your Income” “This isn’t SPAM” If you can’t put these words in the body of your emails, then it follows that you absolutely should not put them in your subject line. Also avoid large headlines, large images, and red colored font.
5. Don’t send out emails in bulk Here’s a simple trick that will save you from the blacklist. Don’t send your emails to a large group of addresses all at once. That doesn’t mean that you’re expected to send emails one by one to every client on your list. Your email service provider should have the option – choose the individual messages setting. There are dozens of email marketing tips that will help you get your emails into people’s inboxes but the truth is it’s not that hard to avoid getting marked as SPAM. Just stick to the golden rules of protecting your ISP domain’s reputation, delivering high quality content over hard selling, and always testing your mail before sending them out to your list. Want to get more of those helpful email marketing tips? Register to join our group of online marketers where you can learn from our experience and share some of your own. Visit http://bishopstewart.com/email-marketing-tips-how-to-avoid-being-flagged-asspam/ for more information about Email Marketing Tips - How to Avoid Being Flagged as SPAM Other articles you will find interesting: Email Marketing Tips Part 1 Email Marketing Tips Part 2 A Mind for Success Creating A Killer E-book Title Part-1 This Could be Be Killing Your Business Growth List Building Strategies Part 1