Thinking of a way to send meaningful messages during special occasions? Sending a personalized email to your family, friends, and even colleagues might be “old school” but is still the simplest yet heartwarming gift you can give! Just make sure it goes right through their inbox. 😉. Here are some tips to avoid being tagged as SPAM.
What Should You Do?
If you’re like millions of other email marketers, you may experiment with a different Subject line, disable tracking, or omit images in a trial-and-error attempt to get past your email provider’s (Gmail, Yahoo and Outlook) filters and into the Inbox.
This laborious trial-and-error procedure is tiring – modifying your message, sending it to your test lists, and then waiting to see where the email lands — this is the least enjoyable aspect of an email marketer’s work.
But how can we avoid being tagged as SPAM?
1. Avoid manually entering email addresses into your database
To avoid mistakes in their email addresses, avoid manually entering your contacts into your database. This prevents you from sending messages to non-existent email addresses, which may bounce and result in your company being blacklisted.
2. Clean your email lists regularly
If you have never cleaned your email list, you are probably wasting time, effort, and money promoting to people who have no interest in your business.
Each year, the email list size decreases by 20%–30%. Around a third of your subscribers will never receive your emails, let alone click on your call to action. What is the point of communicating with them then?
So What should you do?
3. Optimize your email content
To prevent receiving spam complaints and being added to an email blacklist, which may include a URL blacklist, avoid sending generic email blasts. Change the look and feel of your emails, by personalizing them depending on your recipient’s profile to furthermore provide valuable contents that resonate with your readers.
On occasions where you can’t find any alternatives to replace the trigger words, make sure you convert them into “images”. Though using pictures can do the trick, make sure not to use too many images (more than 5) with large file sizes (>5MB) to avoid triggering the spam filters.
4. Double opt-in for your email subscribers
Double opt-ins involve a two-step verification process in which users subscribe to your mailing list and then receive an email with a confirmation link. This ensures that your subscribers are real people and not bots. The extra signup step also ensures that your subscribers want to receive your emails, whether it’s a newsletter, promotional offers, or new product notifications. Increase email deliverability and lead generation with double opt-ins.
5. Include an “unsubscribe” button in your emails
Unsubscribe links in email correspondence are required by anti-spam legislation or your company’s domain may be blocked. Including an unsubscribe option in your emails guarantees that you are communicating with only those who wish to receive them.
6. Secure your server
Protect your email server from bots or malware that can hijack your IP address and email domain by implementing suitable security measures and utilizing tools that scan IP addresses. These malicious applications might send you bogus emails, blacklisting you even if you follow the best standards for email marketing.
7. Get your servers included in whitelists
On the technical side, having your email servers in the whitelist proves that you are a credible and trustworthy sender, and is a big factor in improving deliverability across subscribers and email marketing campaigns.
Always remember to practice good email hygiene, adhere to anti-spam legislation, and employ the best email marketing practices to avoid being blacklisted!