"Avoiding the Dreaded 'Spam/Junk Mail' Filter When Sending eMail Campaigns"
Sandy Fong
eMail Marketing (eMarketing) is one of the most effective marketing tactics for promoting your non-profit organization. Unfortunately, many eMarketers have sent unsolicited emails to contacts who are not interested in their products. These unsolicited emails—called spam or junk—are similar to the junk mail we all receive at home. One of the difficult tasks of an eMarketer is to create an email campaign that does not get stuck in their recipients’ spam or junk mail filter.
This article is written for non-profit organizations who are new to eMarketing. It offers a basic guide to getting started through a question and answer format.
What is spam or junk email?
Generally speaking, spam or junk email promote products or services for which you did not previously request information.
Because bulk emails are easy and inexpensive to send, irresponsible eMarketers continue to send these unwanted messages even if you contact them and ask to be removed from their distribution list. Due to the amount of time it takes individuals to process these unwanted emails, filtering software was created by commercial emailers like AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail and Gmail to move these unwanted emails to a spam/junk mail folder before it gets to the individual’s inbox. Corporations have also installed filters on their email systems to prevent their employees from getting these unwanted messages.
How do I design my emails so they are not considered spam or junk?
One big help is to research the Federal Trade Commission’s CAN-SPAM Act regulations (http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/canspam.shtm). While there has been some dispute as to whether or not non-profit organizations should be required to follow the CAN-SPAM regulations, it cannot hurt an eMarketing campaign to follow the regulations since all email spam/junk mail filters are most likely programmed to take those regulations into account.
What does the Federal Trade Commission’s CAN-SPAM Act want me to do?
The FTC asks eMarketers to follow a few common sense guidelines:*
- Email headers (sender’s name and email address) should accurately reflect your organization’s name and actual email address. Do not use false or misleading names or email addresses.
- The subject line text should accurately reflect your purpose in sending the email (event promotion, press release, etc.). Do not use deceptive text in the subject line.
- The text should include instructions on how to ìopt-outî from future emails if the contact wants to be removed from the email distribution list. These ìopt-outî requests must be honored within 10 business days.
- The text should be clear about the purpose of the email (advertisement or solicitation). If you are requesting donations or promoting an event sponsored by your organization, say so clearly. Include the physical address of your organization’s headquarters so that recipients can contact them if needed.
* For complete compliance with the CAN-SPAM Act, have your organization’s legal advisers review the CAN-SPAM Act regulations as well as sample email campaigns. Follow their recommendations on compliance.
Q&A
What else can I do to prevent my emails from ending up in the spam/junk folders?
There is no magic to-do list that will guarantee your emails will escape being stuck in the spam/junk folders. However, these additional suggestions will help you create “good” emails that will hopefully pass thorough filters and get to their intended recipient. This may require a little extra work from your email design/production team but it will be worth it to have your e-communication received appropriately.
eTesting
- Setup free email accounts with commercial emailers like Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, etc. Set the security high or medium on these accounts. Send sample emails (press releases, event promotion, donation solicitation, etc.) to these accounts and see if they get caught in the spam/junk folders. Adjust your text/subject lines until your emails get past the spam/junk filters.
- Search the web for the phrase “email spam scores.” You should find websites that allow you to submit your email for review. Most of them are free and will give your email a “spam” score. Warning: These websites do not guarantee that your emails will make it through all the spam/junk filters. What they do is offer valuable feedback on your email content from an independent source.
eDesign
- At the top of your email, ask your contacts to add your sender e-address to their list of “safe contacts” or their address book. Use text like “Add xxx@xxxxxx.com” to your address book to keep getting our emails.” Senders flagged as “safe” bypass the spam/junk filters.
- Do not display all of the list’s e-addresses in the header. Make sure your email delivery provider only displays the recipient’s e-address in the “TO:” field. If you are manually sending these emails from your individual email account, put the distribution list in the “BCC:” field (use your email address in the “TO:” field).
Distribution List Maintenance
- Keep a list of all e-addresses that bounce. Regularly remove addresses that hard bounce (unknown user, unknown domain server, etc.) from your distribution list. Senders that repeatedly send emails to bad addresses can be labeled as spammers.
Sandy Fong, a marketing consultant, assists clients in the corporate and nonprofit sector with direct mail/eMarketing campaigns. |
