Do Business Well

Spammers work hard to understand why their messages are not read and find methods to avoid being blocked. Here, legitimate e-mail marketers are much like the spammer, since they and their suppliers also need to understand what is stopping their messages getting through and identify solutions to this. There are four general points where spam or legitimate permission-based e-mail is identified, and which can stop e-mail being read by the recipient:

1. Inbox identification by the user. The simplest way that spam is identified is by the recipient; if it looks like spam from the header, it will be quickly removed using the delete button. Alternatively, recipients can report spam to their anti-spam software and, if enough people do this, there is the danger that may be added to a blacklist.

2. Software filtering. E-mail can be identified as having the characteristics of spam by antispam software, which may run at a variety of locations — at the ISP, a third-party mail- scanning service, a company firewall or mail server, at a web-based e-mail service server or on the end-user’s computer.

3. Domain blocking. Here, the domain from which the e-mails are broadcast is blocked since its IP address is deemed to be a known source of spam.

4. Sender authentication systems. Here, the recipient’s system or administrator identifies that the e-mail has not been sent from a recognized broadcaster.

Let’s now look at these in a little more detail.

Inbox identification

An e-mail will look like spam if recipients don’t recognize the sender — i.e. it is not a company or product known to them as indicated by the From, subject line or preview pane. If it is not clear from the subject line, a preview of the text in the e-mail will usually show whether or not it is relevant. For an in-house e-mail list you must therefore use the company or brand name in the From address, or in some cases (like an e-newsletter where the name of the e-newsletter is in the From address) use the name of the company or brand in the subject line.

For campaigns using rented lists or co-branded with a partner, it is more tricky. Many companies concatenate both list owner and the brand being promoted in the From as in Treeserve-Accucard’, but since this may get truncated it is perhaps better to put the brand in the subject line.

Another vital step to avoid being identified as spam by the recipient is to use copy within the message that explains that the message is not spam. This is commonly headed as a ‘statement of origination‘ or, more informally, ‘Why am I receiving this e-mail?’ This should explain either that the recipient has opted in, ideally with the place and time of opt-in, or that the e-mail has been sent because the recipient is an existing customer. You should also explain that the message is within the law of the country.

For e-mail campaigns using rented or shared lists, it is essential that the statement of origination is clear, typically at or near the top of the message. For house-list campaigns it is still useful to have a statement of origin, but is probably best at the foot of the message.

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