SPAM Therapy
by David Leach
According to a recent article on BBC News, the process of checking inboxes and sifting through SPAM is actually causing people stress, forcing them to take sick days. These people get so worked up over the fact that they are spending half of their time sorting out fact from fiction, that they have to physically leave the office to recover.
This is clearly a little extreme. Knowing that Spam is a major issue, ask yourself what your current email practices look like and if you may need a little touch up yourself. Ask yourself what the status is of your contact lists? Are they old, outdated, and full of addresses that bounce and no longer exist? Does your content remain consistent with the various lists that receive your emails? Do you have different categories of lists that you send all of your information to or do you segment the content to correlate with each respective group?
As you ponder your own email practices, reference the following as a guideline for your best looking white hat that politely says, “Hey, I’m not a spammer, I’m one of the good guys, how are things?” So:
- Use your name in the “From” field
- Use your company, product, or service in the subject line
- Make all of your content clearly correlate with your subject line
- With your relevant text, use traditional font and coloring formatting…ALL CAPS and a lot of !!!!!! will get you right into Spam filters
- Use smaller images and more descriptive text
- Less is more…linking to descriptive content on your website is much better than having an email that resembles a short novel
Put in the time to make your email relevant and personal and you will see a greater return. Why not dedicate a whole afternoon, once a week, to creating the best campaign possible, instead of throwing content together an hour before it goes out. Your contacts are smart and demand respect and if you don’t treat them that way, you will be ignored.
So, what do you do? Be smart, be honest, bring value to every single email correspondence, clean your lists, and try practicing the tips listed above.
