Email Newsletters: Improving Opens, Click-Throughs, and Conversions - Speaking of Spam
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Speaking of spam, be sure to avoid key spam filter words in your headline and in the content of the email itself. When making an offer, appeal to the emotions, but avoid the obvious spam words. While you know your email contains useful and interesting information, a spam program does not. Be careful in your choice of wording. A single spam complaint could get your Internet service provider (ISP) to cancel your service. Examples of spam words include references to bulk mail, “free” (there’s no such thing as a free lunch), and repeating the same words over and over again. If you can, have someone whose mail-server has SpamAssasin installed to test your newsletter and see how high your spam point count is.
[Editor’s note: We actually had a similar issue with the Developer Shed newsletter some time ago. Our SpamAssasin point count was up to 10.62. After looking at the SpamAssasin report, we removed such phrases as “Free,” “Get Paid,” reduced the HTML to content ratio, and removed the “?subject=Title” additions to emails. After that, we reduced our spam-point count to under 2.5, which stopped the ***SPAM*** header from being added to the title of our newsletter message.]
Keep your list clean. Don’t send email newsletters to those who don’t want to receive them. If a subscriber requests removal, do so promptly. There is no reason to keep anyone on your list who doesn’t want to remain. Be professional and remove their name. Also, be sure to remove any names where the email address is no longer working. Give a "bounced" or returned email another chance or two, then remove the name. It will do wonders for your opening percentages and for your reputation as a professional business person. Don’t let yourself be labeled as a spammer.
Track your opens using a number of good, common email newsletter programs like Outlook, Outlook Express, Mozilla mail, Thunderbird, and Eudora. Keep in mind that HTML newsletters are always easier to track than plain text. Not all newsletters services can track opens of plain text. (Watch out for that when you consider your email providers!) Tracking the number of opens in addition to the other parts of the process is important to your success.
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