Spam— ugh, what a dreadful thing. We’ve all had to suffer through sorting through our inbox and deciphering what’s important and what’s, well, trash. Personally, I’d rather watch paint dry. While we can all agree that dealing with spam isn’t our favorite pastime, we must not forget that potential leads out there could be marking your emails as spam right as this very moment. I rank this up in my top 10 biggest business fears— no one, and I mean no one, wants to put time and effort into an excellent marketing campaign to have it marked and tossed in the spam box, and then even worse be put on the horrifying blacklist (dun dun duuuuun).
Here’s the big question: how do you avoid this? If you do the research, you may come across a ton of steps of precaution. They’re all important enough to print, frame, and hang above your workspace. We’d rather you save some paper and look to a shortened but golden list of rules below: manage
Avoid the use of spammy words.
Spam filters search for particular words that are often associated with spam emails. When certain phrases or words are used, points are assigned to a spam score that correlates with your email marketing campaign (spam filters do not release their filtering process, so there’s no one way of knowing how large the score can be) . If the collection of these points exceeds the spam score, the filter sends the campaign into the recipient's junk mail folder. With this being said, there are many words that you can avoid using in order to keep your email campaign’s spam score low. Now, there are literally hundreds of these, but I’ve compiled a short list of words that you as an event planner might use when creating the subject line for your campaign:
Amazing
Advertise
Advertising
Best Price
Certified
Congratulations
Discount
Free
Limited Time
Package
Performance
Marketing
Along with your subject line, the body of your emails are being watched by spam filters. Using all uppercase letters and several exclamation points in your subject line is a big red flag for filters, but this can also be the case when used in the body. Using several different images and bright colors such as green and red (sorry, Christmas lovers) is typically a no-no, along with adding attachments and using incredibly long content. As a rule of thumb, you should think about what you’d like to receive in an email. Would you want a flashy, too bright, wordy, and shouty email from someone asking you to use their product and/or services? If your answer is no, then you should consider this while you create your own campaign.
Tell email recipients your location.
It is a requirement to list a physical address in the emails you send out for marketing, whether it be a street address or a post office box. The footer of your email is the perfect place to put this information.
Always offer an opt-out of your emails and always honor it.
It is absolutely necessary for you as a business owner to allow someone to opt-out of marketing campaigns, make it easy for them to do so, and to honor this within 10 business days of the opt-out request. Ignoring these kind of requests is a surefire way to be placed on a blacklist.
Monitor what is being done for you.
You may employ people to handle your company’s marketing, and in that case you should always monitor how they are handling your marketing campaigns. Remember that you and your company will be held responsible for any spamming violations made, not the person you’ve hired.
It’s also important to be cautious when using your personal email for marketing. Sending a mass email from your inbox will alert spam filters faster than you can say “blacklist.” With Inspherio, you don’t have to worry about using your email as a marketing tool. Inspherio offers email marketing management that allows users to review a detailed report of campaigns that have been recently sent out, helping you keep an eye on whether or not your campaign is being marked as spam.
There’s definitely an art to avoiding being blacklisted, so be sure to check off the list of do’s and don’ts when creating your next marketing campaign. And don’t forget, with a program like Inspherio, building and managing your email marketing has never been easier. Check us out for a free trial if you haven’t already!
Tell email recipients your location.
It is a requirement to list a physical address in the emails you send out for marketing, whether it be a street address or a post office box. The footer of your email is the perfect place to put this information.
Always offer an opt-out of your emails and always honor it.
It is absolutely necessary for you as a business owner to allow someone to opt-out of marketing campaigns, make it easy for them to do so, and to honor this within 10 business days of the opt-out request. Ignoring these kind of requests is a surefire way to be placed on a blacklist.
Monitor what is being done for you.
You may employ people to handle your company’s marketing, and in that case you should always monitor how they are handling your marketing campaigns. Remember that you and your company will be held responsible for any spamming violations made, not the person you’ve hired.
It’s also important to be cautious when using your personal email for marketing. Sending a mass email from your inbox will alert spam filters faster than you can say “blacklist.” With Inspherio, you don’t have to worry about using your email as a marketing tool. Inspherio offers email marketing management that allows users to review a detailed report of campaigns that have been recently sent out, helping you keep an eye on whether or not your campaign is being marked as spam.
There’s definitely an art to avoiding being blacklisted, so be sure to check off the list of do’s and don’ts when creating your next marketing campaign. And don’t forget, with a program like Inspherio, building and managing your email marketing has never been easier. Check us out for a free trial if you haven’t already!
