Spam Protection Ate My Newsletter! - Always Remember
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The popularity of these online spam databases is growing as spam becomes more prevalent. One recent proposal (visit it online) calls for uniting Canadain ISPs under one spam database to help prevent people from recieving junk and tracking down illegal scams that are mass mailed.
You don’t want to be part of this group. Databases such as this exist largely to help law enforcement agencies prosecute senders of the archived mail. If your mail is properly optimized with an unsubscribe link, you should be in the clear. But to avoid any future hassle, keep up-to-date on your newsletter’s whereabouts anyway.
The United States’ FTC has a similar program that it is starting, which you can visit you can also visit if you click here. It has no stated plans for a spam database, but it’s probably not unthought-of. Regardless, not providing proper on-page optimization for opting out or clearly looking like a reputable newsletter may compel a spam activist to turn your mail in. This could result in some undesirable legal situations down the line.
When all these spam services come together and do what they are supposed to, it can be a great thing. It doesn’t just help people reading email, it helps people sending newsletters. Granted you spend the time to do a check-up on your letter, it will arrive in cleaner inboxes where it can receive more attention. When you don’t have undesirable, impersonal email to compete with, it’s always good to help attract some views.
Always keep in mind that using RSS and copying your newsletter to a dedicated page on your website offer more ways to update your readers without losing them. Developer Shed has RSS feeds for every one of the sites on the network, which people can post on their own pages or track on their own. These feeds can bring you the attention that mass mailings cannot, if your newsletter gets overlooked in piles of spam. Also, having an HTML page of past publications set up is also helpful. Not only can it keep people up to date, but it also can get spidered by search engines.
It may seem obvious, but never rely on cheap tricks to get more readers. One mistake people make is to sign up people to their list automatically. Even if your unsubscribe function works perfectly, your newsletter loses all respect and value when it is sent unsolicited.
Finally, there may be good revenue in mailing advertisements to your mailing list. This should not be done outside of your newsletter, unless it is something subscribers consciously opt into. Placing an add in the regular mailing doesn’t hurt, but becoming a source of "subscribed spam" is only going to hurt your reputation and subscribers.
The war on spam can be viscous to anyone with a mailing list. Clearly, if you work it just right, spam filters can be your friend. If you ignore the details and just try to get content out there, you may suffer for it.
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