Email Marketing Guidlines


by Luke Riley - Date: 2010-01-08 - Word Count: 464 Share This!

Permission You need to be extra cautious these days with spam filtering affecting as much as 20-30% of email campaigns. Ensure that everyone on your list has opted-in to your email list, DO NOT add email addresses to your lists without their permissino first as this is spamming.

Subscriber Information When requesting website visitors to opt-in ask for their name and email address only. Once you start asking for phone numbers, home addresses etc this will affect your number of signups.

List Maintenance Always promptly remove undeliverable addresses that bounce when sending email to them. An address that bounces with a permanent error 2-3 times in a 30 day period should be removed from the list.

Message Format Use HTML messages to allow for text formatting, multiple columns, images, and brand recognition is growing in popularity and is widely supported by most email client software. A 2004 study by AWeber.com shows that plain text messages are undeliverable 1.15% of the time and HTML only messages were undeliverable 2.3%. If sending HTML it is important to always send a plain text alternative message, also called text/HTML multi-part mime format.

Content Many ISP's filter based on the content that appears within the message text.

Words/phrases:

Choose your language carefully when crafting messages. Avoid hot button topics often found in spam such as medication, mortgages, making money, and pornography. If you do need to use words that might be filtered, don't attempt to obfuscate words with extra characters or odd spelling, you'll just make your messages appear more spam like.

Images:

Avoid creating messages that are entirely images. Use images sparingly, if at all.

Attachments:

With viruses running rampant and spreading thru the usage of malicious email attachments many users are wary of attached documents. It's often better to link to files via a website URL to reduce recipient fear of attachments and reduce the overall message size.

CAN-SPAM Compliance The January 2004 Federal CAN-SPAM law introduced a number of rules regarding the delivery of email. The two most important rules include having a valid postal mail address listed in all commercial messages and a working unsubscribe link that is promptly honored to remove the subscriber from future messages.

Whitelisting Contact with major ISP's and email providers is essential in letting them know about your requested subscriber email. Many large providers such as AOL and Yahoo have specific whitelisting programs and postmaster website areas to ensure your email is delivered as long as you meet their policies and procedures in handling your opt-in list. In short, whitelisting is the best way to ensure your message gets read.

Email marketing is about ensuring requested opt-in email is delivered to the intended recipient. While no single tip will enable you to get 100% of your email delivered each one utilized as a group can go a long way to reaching that goal.

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