Most marketers are aware of ‘no go’ words for subject lines and content when it comes to avoiding spam filters. However, even if you don’t repeat the words ‘Free’ or ‘millions of $$$’ throughout your email you may still be making some simple mistakes that could result in your email landing in the junk folder of some or many of its intended recipients.

Take a look at this guide for what you should and should not be doing when creating your email campaigns. If you want to really get to grips with how to send powerful, effective emails that avoid spam filters, come on our 1-day Email Marketing Workshop. Not convinced it’s the right strategy for your business? Read this post on why you really need to be using Email Marketing.

Do:

Use double opt-in

Spam filters are becoming increasingly aware and are strict when it comes to defining what is and isn’t permission, and individuals are more inclined to just chuck emails into the junk folder if they don’t remember signing up.

Rather than run that risk, adopt the double opt-in method whereby an individual must confirm via email after signing up that they do really want to receive emails.

It might seem like a hassle but it will save you lots of trouble down the line.

Use an obvious and recognisable sender name

Simple really –  if a recipient can’t work out who the email’s from straight away, they’ll bung into junk without a second’s thought.

Use a clear and concise name, with no unnecessary numbers or letters – and make sure it’s the same/as close to the name they’d have seen when signing up.

Use HTML and plain text formats

This helps both ISPs and spam filters recognise that you’re authentic, and helps those with a slow internet speed or old software to still read your message.

Make sure the text makes sense in both formats.

Test before sending

This is a very obvious one but something so many forget. Send a copy to yourself (and a friend, colleague etc) and really examine it.

Ask yourself firstly: would I open this or throw it in junk? If you can, see if it passes your own spam filter and make sure to check for simple errors like spelling mistakes in the header.

Don’t:

Use spammy signals

This sounds like a bit of a circular point at first (don’t spam by not spamming), but it is important. It’s all too easy to use words like ‘deal’ and ‘offer’ or be over-zealous with exclamation marks.

Perhaps the worst offence though in the eyes of the spam filters is excessive use of capitals. ALL THESE THINGS APPEAR VERY UNNATURAL!!!!!

Use poor design

If it looks like it’s been designed by a five year old (or in 2001) then it won’t be given a second glance. It needs to look professional and fit with your brand identity.

If you don’t think you have the design skills to produce a decent template, you really ought to consider hiring an agency to do it for you – it will make an enormous difference.

Send large files

That means anything with videos and large images are off the table. Keep the size of your email as small as possible – not only will this improve your campaigns chance of cutting through spam filters but also enhance click-through rate.

You can do some great stuff with HTML and CSS that really keeps the file size to a minimum. We can teach you how to do this on our HTML Emails Training Course.

Send attachments

Most people will accept this as perfectly normal but some will question this point. Like the point above, adding attachments increases the size of the email and is just generally a turnoff for both man and machine – people don’t open an attachment unless they know who it’s from.

Throw in links to your landing page on your site instead.

If you have a low response rate, it may be that your emails are bouncing, not going to spam. Find out how to avoid this with our post ‘What is an Email bounce?‘.

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Tags

email, junk folder, junk mail, marketing, spam, spam filter

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