Email marketing is one of the most effective marketing tools we have at our disposal. Even with social media getting all the hype, email lists are still the way to make profits on the internet. Social media is a great way to get names and email addresses onto your email list. Once you have this great database, it’s important to send periodic emails.
One problem that people experience with sending out bulk emails is that occasionally an email gets stuck in the recipients spam folder. And you won’t even know it! Spam filters are continuously improving, but until they are perfect, you need to craft your emails well. The other day I was proofing an email that a business partner of mine had written for one of our lists. She inadvertently used the phrase "no-cost" in the title no less. This immediately set off red flags in my brain waves.
I have a list of words and phrases that are taboo for emails. When those words are in the title, it can make things even worse. The problem is that in most cases this email may go through just fine, but sometimes it may get spammed. You won’t even know that it was placed in anyone’s spam folder! You won’t know who actually received the email and who didn’t.
We were brainstorming a new title for this email and came up with the phrase "zero-cost" to replace "no-cost". I didn’t know this as being a red flag for spam, so I did a little research to make sure this was a phrase safe to use. Because I spent this time researching, I thought I would share my results with you.
Here are three great lists of spam words and phrases that you may want to avoid as much as possible in your emails.
http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt8/spamfilter_phrases.htm
http://codex.wordpress.org/Spam_Words
http://www.mequoda.com/articles/subject-line-spam-trigger-words/
I just want to mention a pet peeve I have. Some people, and I even see well-known business ownsers do this, will add wierd characters in between the letters of a word that could be a spam red flag. For example, Fr*e*e. This really annoys me. The spam filters allow the use of these words if they are used minimally, so why not just throw the right word in there? If you need to mention the word so many times that you are afraid your message will be spammed, then maybe you really are spamming your list. Are you doing too much selling in your emails? This will turn off your recipients, so be careful.
When my business partner and I were removing the phrase "no-cost", we were taking precautions. The fact that it was in the title was more important than if it was mixed in the body with a bunch of other normal (non-spammy) words. It was easy to just use a different title than to try and trick the spam filters.
While we are on the topic of email marketing, I just want to let you know about an awesome content-filled audio from when I was interviewed for an advanced training group. It was an interview where I answered everyone’s questions about Aweber and the power of its many features. Aweber is a marketing power tool. If you are using it for your email list, make sure that you are getting your money’s worth and using all the features that it has.
Here’s a link to purchase the audio at a discounted price. You will learn things about Aweber that you didn’t even know it could do.
http://www.cereuswomen.com/products/aweber/AweberTelesem.html
And for more great teleseminars => www.cereuswomen.com/teleseminars
