E-marketing: How to engender trust and avoid spam filters

By Joanna L. Krotz

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In just a few short years, e-mail marketing has emerged as both a top-notch tool and a tricky challenge.

On the one hand, e-mail promotion excels at boosting business results, and is likely the most cost-effective marketing tactic you can find. On the other hand, we are all paying a price for that success.

Because it’s so affordable and efficient, everyone and anyone is using e-mail to send sales messages these days. The result is a daily tsunami of mail, much of it spam.

Worse, after a relative lull, spam is surging again, according to market researcher IDC—in part because threats to inboxes now come from newer technologies, not just text. Spam-based messages are proliferating as MP3 files, image-based messages, and voice-over-IP (VoIP) drive more electronic communications. In 2007, of the nearly 97 billion e-mails sent daily worldwide, more than 40 billion were earmarked as spam, the IDC reports.

If you plan to invest time and money in e-mail marketing efforts—and it's still a smart thing to do—here’s how to make sure your customers will value and respond to your messages. (Also, be sure to see the E-mail Marketing feature of Office Live Small Business.)

Learning how spam blockers and filters work

To protect users from the rising tide of spam, Internet service providers (ISPs) and security-conscious companies such as Microsoft continually develop and upgrade software programs to identify and prevent unwanted messages.

Blocker programs often work at ISP servers, automatically swatting aside spam before it reaches recipients. Spam filters review incoming messages and, depending on the settings users select in Microsoft Office Outlook or other e-mail software, divert unwanted messages directly into a junk-mail folder.

There are lots of variations on these themes, but that’s the general idea.

This is the point where the marketing tool meets the marketing challenge. Spam is invariably in the eye of the beholder, of course. One user's unwanted message is another's essential piece of news.

Your first task as an e-marketer is to craft the right kind of message for your defined prospects and customers. That way, they’ll receive and hopefully open your e-mail. (See "Tips for e-mail marketing in a spam-filled world" for additional insight.)

Next, you need to be aware of evolving spam safeguards, so your messages don’t land in the junk pile.

What causes a 'false positive'

Blockers and filters often make mistakes, which the industry calls "false positives." These are messages identified as "spam," even though they're completely legitimate.

It happens because some text, graphic, or image in the e-mail triggers the blockers and filters for incorrect reasons.

The upshot? Despite the time and money you may invest, your customer never even sees your e-mail offer or news.

Here's an example:   One business writer typically sends out weekly e-news blasts and training offers. Like any canny e-marketer, she includes her own e-mail address in the blast, so she can see how and when the message lands.

Recently, she stopped receiving her own messages though she heard from a few clients who did get them. Clearly, some messages were getting through while others weren't.

As a first step to uncovering the reason, she lowered the settings on her junk mail protection from "high" to "low." Immediately, her messages began landing again. She still didn't know what made the difference. It took some trial and error, but she finally figured it out.

The reason is laughable—except NOT.

In closing, she listed her name, contact information and a tag line that said "Business Writer Specialist." Can you even guess why that would trigger the filter?

Let me spell it out for you: "SpeCIALISt." Yep, the brand name of the men’s sex enhancer was embedded in the word and that turned out to be the culprit. She switched her tag line to "Business Writer Expert," and all was well again.

The lesson here is that you must take the time to scrupulously review and fine-tune your e-mail campaigns in order for them to be successful.

Dos and don'ts

With that in mind, here are some tips that will help keep the gates from closing on your messages.

• Do test and test again.   Before sending out any e-mail marketing, try a test run on different operating systems and e-mail programs. That means sending your e-mail to a select list of prospects or to some friends and associates who will offer immediate feedback.

  Also, set up a few different e-mail accounts of your own to see how those work, each with different protection settings.

   Tip   Many filters work on a scoring system. When a message racks up too many points, the e-mail is defined as spam. Try using Spam Assassin to test your scores. Generally, 3.0 or higher is identified as spam.

• Don’t use tiny fonts.   Some spam filters see tiny type as a sign that marketers are trying to embed content or other harmful elements in the message.
• Do be careful of blacklists.   Besides software that filters content, spam blockers are also based on feedback and complaints from ISP subscribers (often volunteers) and on certain message traffic patterns. That would include a high number of bounce backs or messages caught in a spam trap or junk pile. Once you’ve been identified that way, it can be tough to convince an ISP that you’re not a spammer.

  The best way to avoid getting on a blacklist is to work at it. Testing and retesting, as mentioned above, can help catch unanticipated trouble. Since each ISP has its own policies, you might call the major ones to ask about their blacklist procedures. What, for instance, triggers putting a company on its blacklist? What does the ISP do to investigate before deciding an e-marketer is a spammer? What does it take to get "whitelisted" again? Armed with that information, you can avoid unintended mistakes.

• Don't use lots of images.   Some experts say that when messages are filled with images, you can increase your spam score by as much as one point.
• Do send messages from a real name.   If the "From Name" field contains symbols, numbers, or the like, your message has much higher odds of being labeled spam.
• Don't get fancy with subject lines.  Put a customer benefit or problem-solver in the subject line of your e-mail. Do not get cute or overly personal. Do not overuse punctuation (!!!), or use ALL CAPS, or words like "free," "win," "now," "click here," or current buzzwords. Avoid tired marketing phrases such as: "While supplies last," "Last chance to save," or "Call for a free quote." These will likely send your message straight to the junk folder.
• Do be straightforward.   Keep your body copy short, direct, and clear.
• Finally, don’t betray your customer.   Playing by the rules—otherwise known as adopting the best and most honest practices for e-mail marketing—is likely to produce the best results. Don't promise your customer anything you won't deliver. Don't inundate them with messages: Respect their time. And don't make the mistake of spamming—even once.

  By spamming even one time, you risk losing your customer's trust and your company's good name.

About the author   Joanna L. Krotz is the founder of Muse2Muse Productions, a custom content company for business and consumer magazines, newsletters, and digital imprints. Krotz has launched marketing Web sites and e-news portals, as well as created magazines and online marketing for a variety of companies. She is co-author of The Microsoft Small Business Kit, a 500-page guide to launching and running a small business.