spam

Email Marketing Tips – Some Fundamentals

| JDriver

Email marketing can be useful if done correctly. Unfortunately, making them effective can be difficult as people can get inundated with emails clamouring for their attention and people are less forgiving when it comes to regarding emails as spam.

1. Greet Them Personally

Using the recipients first name makes the email seem more legitimate as it makes them think that the sender is known to them, therefore they’re more likely to read it.

2. One-Click Unsubscribe

Should a recipient wish to unsubscribe, you should honour the request graciously and promptly. If you categorise your various email communications, recipients can then have the option to stop receiving one type, whilst choosing to receive another type.

3. Consistency

As with all of your companies marketing materials, keeping a consistent look and feel means that you strengthen your brands image. Not to mention that it looks professional.

4. People Buy From People

Emails are typically a bit more informal than other means so don’t be afraid to inject some personality into your marketing emails.

5. Give People A Reason To Read The Email

Although you are passionate about your business you can’t expect your customers to be as enthusiastic. There should be a good reason for the recipient to read to email and to continue receiving them. Make it useful, make it informative, add discount coupons, exclusive deals or what ever else you can think of.

6. Test And Test Some More

Once you start sending email out you need to keep and eye on how well they’re performing. Commercial email marketing software will provide analytic results so that you can see various information, such as how many people open the email etc. Ideally you should test two slightly different emails at the same time, so half of your mailing list receive one version the rest receive the other version. This is called A/B SPLIT TESTING. Comparing one email against another means that you can see which is more effective and then keep altering and testing to make them as effective as they can be.

6.2 Test Your Subject Line

The subject line is one of the primary aspects of a marketing email that will dictate whether the recipient will open the email or trash it. A/B split test your subject lines.

7. Avoid Assassins

Spam assassins and other tools can silently take out your email without the proposed recipient ever seeing it. Here’s some common pitfalls just to get you started:

  • DON’T USE ALL CAPS
  • Avoiding using multiple exclamation marks
  • Words such as ‘Free’, ‘Sex’, ‘Discount’ and ‘Click Here!’ will give spam assassins itchy trigger-fingers
  • HTML emails must be properly coded
  • Avoid large image to text ratios. A common tactic of spammers is to use large images instead of text in order to disguise the content
  • Use only permission-based email lists

8. Tell Your Providers

If you’re campaign is likely to be quite substantial, let your email service provider know. Otherwise you may get blacklisted as a spammer.

9. Give The Option of HTML And Plain Text

You should also give people this choice. Personal freedom aside, HTML emails are displayed differently by the various email clients there are. An email viewed in Outlook may well look different to one viewed in Gmail for instance.

10. Keep The Best Content At The Top

Nearly all email clients have a preview pane, allowing recipients to view an email without actually opening it. Keep your best content at the top of the email to make sure they see it.

Reporting Spam to Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL

| JDriver

Spam is continuing to prove to be a huge problem. It’s not always a simple task to report spammers, but the more we do, the harder we make it for them. It would be useful if it was easier to report spam, and if some providers didn’t keep changing their reporting procedures, meaning that those searching for answers end up with dead links, and going around in circles.

Firstly, some spam statistics

The amount of spam which clogs-up the internet is staggering. It causes so many problems, such as wasted time (try adding up how much time you spend deleting/blocking spam), spreads viruses, scams people of their money, and just up vast amounts of technological resources that could be better used.

For the week ending 15th January 2012:
• India sent 13.6% of the worlds spam
• Russia sent 8.8%
• Veitnam: 7.1%

• In 2010, around 294 billion spam emails were sent daily
• Only around 200 – 300 people are responsible for this spam
• Spam is worth the risk and effort. Let’s say spammers are hitting 15 million email addresses, and just 1% of those open the email, that’s 150,000. Now say just .1% respond, that’s 150. People can be stung for hundreds of pounds a time by spammers, so the pay-offs do, sadly, add up. Just .01% of that 294 billion emails equals 29,400,00 – Blimey!
• Just opening an email can make the spammers money, and lets them know that your email address is active – prepare yourself for more spam

Reporting spam from a gmail account to Google

‘I would like to report a Gmail user who has sent messages that violate the Gmail Program Policies and/or Terms of Use.’

Google has a pretty straight-forward reporting form. Links are below.

http://support.google.com/mail/bin/request.py?hl=en&contact_type=abuse

http://support.google.com/mail/bin/topic.py?hl=en&topic=1668978&rd=2

Yahoo! Abuse Help Topics: Report SPAM or Phishing

Yahoo’s reporting is alos nicely straight-forward.

https://help.yahoo.com/kb/mail-for-desktop

Reporting Spam to Microsoft – Hotmail, Live and MSN

Reporting to Microsoft depends upon which address the spam is coming from. You should address an email to report_spam@hotmail.com, report_spam@msn.com or report_spam@live.com (Depending on the originating mail domain: hotmail or msn or live).

Be sure to include the full email header

http://windowslivehelp.com/solution.aspx?solutionid=e1e87293-909f-45e9-9dcd-920a04719bc3

Report an email as spam to AOL

Just one email address this time: abuse@aol.com. Again, be sure to include the full email header.

http://help.aol.com/help/microsites/microsite.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=218748

What if those links or email addresses no longer work? Or the spam is from a different address?

As time goes on, the email companies will redesign their sites, breaking links and changing email addresses.

You can try the following address to find the correct place to report spam: http://abuse.net/. http://www.spamcop.net/ is also a good place to try, as it http://www.m86security.com/labs/submitting.asp

I really can’t be bothered though

I hear you, I do, but a little effort on everyone’s part makes the difference. I’ve had persistent spam from a couple of address and trying to block them via SpamAssassin on my email account without success. I went straight to the providers where it was coming from, and zap! I never had another from those addresses. That means no one else is either.

Have I convinced you yet?

Although it does take a little effort of your part, it does make a difference. You’ll notice it yourself hopefully. Meanwhile, the movers and shakers in the internet world are continuing to make it harder for spammers, and make it easier for you to report.