Spam. No one likes it, yet some email marketers unknowingly sound like it in promotional emails. Do you? Spammers are smart email marketers. These people know how to weasel their way into the hearts of unsuspecting readers to scam for money. This makes it harder for genuine, valuable businesses to get their messages heard among the noise – especially when your messages look and feel like spam.Here are a few ways you can avoid the spam filters, or having your email marketing flagged as spam.
DON’T YELL AT YOUR READER
Spammers try to stand out in crowded inboxes and create a sense of urgency by writing subject lines and email messages with ALL CAPITAL LETTERS. This isn’t just spammy. It’s also rude, aggressive, and downright annoying to read.Stick with the same formatting you’d use when writing to a friend. You might sprinkle all capital letters here and there for emphasis, but you probably won’t use them in a pushy manner.
Stop It With the Exclamation Points!!!!!
You’re excited about what you have to offer, but that doesn’t give you permission to bog down your email with exclamation points. These punctuation marks don’t add pizzazz to your message. Instead, they make your email look and sound like a spam artist trying to conjure up fake excitement from your reader.
Don’t Be Too Good To Be True
Your offer might be a “Once in a lifetime opportunity!” but using that in your email will only turn your audience away.Using phrases that are too good to be true make you look like a spammer to spam filters, and sound like a spammer to your reader. They don’t tell your story. Instead, they make your email stand out like a red flag on a beach warning of the sharks ahead.Keep your message enticing by sticking to the facts and using emotional triggers to get your reader interested.
Strike a Balance
Think if you just use an image you’ll get past those spam filters? Think again. Many spam filters assume that image-only emails are spam. That’s because spam filters cannot read images, so they automatically assume emails without content are spam. Your readers will never get to see your masterful artwork and instead, your message will get lost in the spam shuffle. Strike a balance between text and images. Well-coded HTML templates look professional and incorporate enough text that spam filters won’t flag your emails.