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How NOT To Appear Like A Spammer
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By Dejan Bizinger
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Unless you use the Internet only for surfing and never use youremail address you've probably received something that is calledspam.
There are different definitions for spam but I will say thatspam is unsolicited email commercial. Many people harvest otherpeople's email addresses on email and web forums and send theminfo that they didn't request. This is very frustrating becauseyou loose your precious time deleting those unwanted messages.
In this article I will explain how NOT to appear like a spammer.
Opt-in
If you have an email newsletter it is very important that youdon't appear like a spammer. If you want to stay long in emailpublishing business your newsletters have to be based on opt-inmethod. It means that a subscriber chose to receive yournewsletter and that you have their permission to send them yournewsletter. It is called Permission Marketing. I would suggestthat your list be double opt-in. Now what is double opt-in?
Double opt-in means that your subscribers have to confirm theirrequest to join your list. Confirmation is done by replying tothe message that you send to everyone who had initiatedsubscription. Beside replying, people can confirm their requestby clicking on a certain link. This ensures that one personcan't subscribe another person against his or her will. Also,never buy so called opt-in lists and also never sell or rentyour members base.
Welcome message
I would suggest you that you ask your new subscribers to saveyour welcome message. There you can put the necessary info aboutyour list and list management: list description,subscribe/unsubscribe address, digest address, owner's emailaddress, list rules...
This is important because of the following. Many people promotetheir newsletter for some time, until they get enoughsubscribers and then publish the first issue. However, it ismost likely that someone who had subscribed to your list severalmonths ago forgot that he or she actually requested to be amember of your list. And then, they can accuse you that you area spammer. If they save a welcome message they can see that theyrequired to be your subscribers.
Subject line
Subject line is very important in email newsletters. Beside,>From field it is the most important thing for someone to decidewhether to open your newsletter or not. I would suggest thatyour subject line consists a title of your article, issue numberand date. If your From or To field doesn't consist your listname than you should put your list name in Subject line, too.Preferably in brackets. If you have your subscriber's first namein your database you should definitely put their name as thefirst thing in the Subject line. Then it is more likely thatthey will open your newsletter. Never use spam techniques likeputting Re: at the beginning of your Subject line so that peoplethink that they sent you an email and you are sending them yourreply. Nobody is fool.
Filtration
Many people use email programs with powerful email filteroptions. Many people set their filters to delete messages withget-rich-quick-schemes, porn and similar content so it is wisethat you don't put that kind of text in your messages if youwant that people read it. Also, don't capitalize your words likeFREE, MAKE MONEY, GUARANTEED...
I wouldn't suggest that you use this or similar words in thefirst place beacuse these words are often used by spammers.
If you have an option that in To field be your subscriber'semail address and not, for example your list name, that would beideal because some mail washer programs automatically flagmessages which don't have a recipient email address as possibleSPAM.
List management
Always provide very clear information regarding list managementin your newsletter. Very important thing is that your listmanagement provides very easy way of unsubscribing. For example,some email newsletters have at the very bottom an uniqueunsubscribe address for every subscriber. It can be somethinglike leave-yourlistname-111327893L@yourlistserver.com This way,your subscribers can unsubscribe only with one click and theydon't have to worry if they sent unsubscription request fromaddress which is in your subscriber list. Good list managementis, also, useful because you won't loose your time explaining toyour subscribers how to do something, for example unsubscribe orset receiving messages in digest mode.
Also, it is wise that if you use advanced email marketingsoftware like Group Mail to include important information aboutyour subscribers in every issue of your email newsletter. Inother words, to personalize your newsletter.
For example, you can make a section at the beginning of youremail newsletter where you will write several lines so that yoursubscriber see that he or she really chose to be yoursubscriber. Many email marketing software have an option toinclude a code in your issue that will be automatically parsedafter sending so the subscriber will see his or her info.
Something like this: _____________________ MEMBERS SECTION Yourname: !*COMPLETE_NAME*! Member since: !*MEMBER_SINCE*! From IPaddress: !*IP_ADDRESS*! _____________________
And in your Editor¡¯s Section you can start your writing with:
Dear, !*COMPLETE_NAME*!¡
That¡¯s why personalization is very important.
At the end, you can read several spam messages and - do theopposite in your email newsletter.
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