SEO & Social Media Tips

Tips to send emails into the Inbox without getting spammed.

1) Domain name spam

What is it? If you own a domain name for a website you are probably getting domain name spam. Spammers use the whois database to obtain a list of most of the doman names in the world (ie .com, .net. org). The spammers expect most website owners to set up generic email addresses such as sales@... and info@... They simply send spam to all of the standard generic words at email every domain name in the world.
How to prevent it: Do not have a generic email address such as sales@ and info@. Instead have less usual addresses. Here is a list of all of the generric words (I am currently aware of) the spammers are using:
- info@
- mail@
- sales@
- contact@
- contacts@
- root@
- home@
- contacts@
- enquiries@
- webmaster@.
2) Get on the White Lists
Hotmail and Yahoo! both keep lists of approved senders. Once you're on that list, that means you'll almost always go into the inbox.

3) "Drips"the Messages
Spam filters at most email providers look to see how many messages you're sending at a time. If you're sending to a large list, even if you have a fast and efficient email sending server, have the server "drip" the messages out slowly.
4) Break Large Lists Down
There are many reasons to break large email lists down into smaller ones,

5) Clean" Your Email List
Most, if not all, email providers' spam filters penalize your domain or IP with a higher spam score (meaning there's a higher possibility of your emails going to junk folder) if they see that you are sending emails to bad email accounts. A bad email account is an address that doesn't exist, has been disabled or has a full inbox.

6) Become the ContactOnce a user has added you to his or her contact list, friend list or address book, you will always end up in their inbox.

7) Test Your Email
Before you send your entire email list the message you've worked so hard on, send a test message to each of the big email providers (Hotmail, Yahoo, MSN, Gmail, AOL and one generic office address that is viewed in an Outlook client). Send the test email using the exact same server and information that you'll use with your main list. If the test ends up with most of your emails going to junk folder, then it means you'll end up in the junk box on your main send also. The pre-send test means that you can try different subject lines and email content to try to figure out what sent you to spam.

8) Don't Use "The Big Image"Embedding images in email is not totally a bad idea, but sending an email that's all one big image file definitely is, for many reasons. Foremost among reasons is that spam filters look for those types of image-based emails

9) Don't Sound Like a Spammer!

• Don't use the word "free" too many times.
• Don't use ALL CAPS.
• Don't use lots of colored fonts.
• Only use one exclamation point at a time!
• Stay away from words you'd see in spam: Viagra, drugs, porn, guaranteed winner.

10) Don't Have bad HTML Code
Spam filters check for bad html code, particularly if it looks like the code was done in Microsoft Word and then thrown into an email. Use a professional coder (preferably one who has done email templates before and knows the best way to make them resolve properly in an inbox) or a template provided by your email sending partner.

source: emailmarketing.comm100