Recent surveys indicate that over 1/3 of permission emails consumer
want to receive from trusted sources are being blocked by email
filters and corporate firewalls. Chances are, your all-important
email newsletters are turning up as “false positive”
as well. Which words, phrases, and styles should you avoid at all
costs?
Typically the way these filters and firewalls work is with tests
that have certain numbers of points assigned to them. Your email
message is run through each of these tests before it is delivered
to the recipient. If the cumulative points score reaches a certain
threshold (usually set by the email server administrator), your
email is trashed rather than delivered.
You can lose points as well as gain them. Losing points is a good
thing, since you want to avoid reaching the threshold value where
your message is considered spam. For example, if your message contains
“quoted” email text from a previous message, you can
score a fair number of negative points.
15 general copywriting tips to avoid the email black hole…
* Don’t greet your recipient with a salutation beginning
with “Dear”
* Don’t claim that the recipient was on a list.
* Don’t claim that the recipient registered at your site.
* Don’t claim that your message is not spam.
* Don’t claim that you obtained the recipient’s address
legitimately.
* Don’t claim that the recipient gave you permission or opted
in.
* Don’t claim that the recipient was registered with one of
your marketing partners.
* Don’t claim that you respect all removal requests.
* Don’t claim that you comply with various regulations/House
bills/Senate bills.
* Don’t explain why the recipient is receiving your offer.
* Don’t suggest that the recipient might have received the
email by mistake.
* Include a copyright notice.
* Don’t use “click here” links.
* Don’t link “remove me” to an email address
* Avoid mentioning spammy-sounding words and phrases, like “opportunity,”
“money back,” “incredible,” “targeted,”
and “offer.” You'll want to consult our
50 Most Dangerous Trigger Words and Catch Phrases List for more on
this.
Bear in mind this whole area is a constantly moving target. The
rules and threshold scores of firewalls and filters are constantly
changing, as spammers continue to find ways around them.
There are literally thousands of “rules” to abide by
if you want to get past the filters. In future issues of grayMatter,
we’ll talk about rules for your From and To line, Subject
line, and the litany of rules for HTML source code. Did you know
there are also ways to convince spam filters to “credit”
your email rather than deduct points? Stay tuned for future issues of grayMatter!
Administrivia
Questions? Comments? Contact:
Brian Klais
Editor, grayMatter
grayMatter @ gravityMail.com
p: (608) 285-6600
f: (608) 285-6601
(c) Copyright 2003 Netconcepts. You may forward this message only
if the entire message is left intact.
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