94% of Email is SPAM… So What Are You?

With data collected by Google Postini and released several months ago, it was revealed that 94% of email messages are SPAM or are treated as such by the recipients of the messages. Let’s think about that for a minute… 94% is a test grade you would hang on your refrigerator for months; 94% means don’t set the alarm because by the time you wake up there’s going to be snow on the ground and you won’t have to go to work; 94% is shockingly close to 100% and that means that if your email marketing program isn’t doing everything correctly, well, you can guess which category your messages are going to fall into.

Here are some factors that may be leading to the messages from your email marketing program being tagged as SPAM along with what you can do to prevent that from happening. Wouldn’t it be great to reside amongst the very happy 6% of messages that are positively received by their intended audiences?

Your messages aren’t reaching your list members. The problem could be that your email marketing ASP isn’t reliable enough. Do some research into which email service providers have the highest deliverability rates, which have good reputations and so forth. Problems could arise for many reasons including if you get assigned a recycled IP address or if the servers of your email marketing ASP are overstuffed.

Your messages aren’t being identified. Your list members may be having a hard time distinguishing your messages from the saturated, nearly all encompassing SPAM pile (Remember, 94 percent!). To remedy the situation you need to be sure to have a recognizable name in the “From” field. Your subject line needs to be short, to the point and grammatically correct. Read more on this issue in a former email marketing tip of the week.

Your messages aren’t being read. You may not be compelling enough with the subject lines your email marketing program utilizes. Additionally, it may be time to scrub your list clean of list members who are uninterested in your messages. From here on out, get some information on your list members when they signup. Find out what kinds of messages they want to receive from you so you can segment them accordingly. Don’t forget to set the ground rules either. Inform your new list members when they can expect to receive your messages and how frequently you’ll be in their inbox.

Your messages aren’t being displayed properly. What kind of template or design are you using within your emails? Excessive images can leave the monitors of your list members filled with open spaces and X marks. Complicated HTML or other coding languages could load improperly. Keep your templates simple and clean, and consider offering a text only option for subscribers. Check out another post to learn more about choosing an email marketing template.

Starting from sheer deliverability and ending with your emails being displayed properly, there are lots of landmines and pitfalls that your email marketing program can run into. Find a quality email marketing ASP, identify yourself, compel and target your list members and design your messages effectively and your email marketing program will hopefully find a home in that 6% sliver of opportunity.

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