One question we get is, “How do I avoid a spam trap ?”. I will answer this from a business process and content creation standpoint. Nothing is full-proof, but these are factors you can control.

From a business process standpoint:

  • Do not buy a list of e-mails and solicit them. Will you answer a cold-blasted-email, no matter how good the offer is ? Not likely
  • Ask them to add your e-mail to their safe sender list, and here is a list of systems’ instructions
  • Re-Purpose Blog Commentary like this
  • Create some sort of relationship beforehand by direct mail, on-site visit or by telemarketing.

From a content-creation standpoint, these factors raise spam scores

  • Using an excessive number of consecutive exclamation points
  • Using excessive CAPS to write your message
  • Using Microsoft Word as your .html editor. Microsoft Word’s .html export tool contains sloppy code, which the spam filters will flag and not deliver
  • Using an excessive amount of graphics instead of text. If you send an e-mail with just an image, it may look good for you. However, the spam-bot will flag it.

You can submit your email to some SPAM checker sites as well

Some of my drip marketing campaigns are plain-text in order to increase delivery rates, but I trade off branding and imagery to convey the message.