Newsletters

How to avoid the "Junk/Spam" filter

[Rick42]

Our company has recently launched an initiative to retain our website visitors by sending out newsletters to our subscribers.

Our statistics indicate a very poor amount of individuals opening and reading our newsletters. We have done many tests with this newsletter and we are cracking our heads open on how to avoid the Junk/Spam filters, as we have noticed that most of the time it ends up anywhere else but the Inbox.

My question is if some of you can share some input and/or knowledge on what SHOULD and SHOULDN'T be done with the newsletter in order to maximize the success of our mailings.

We are aware of these so far:

1. It's best to send out on certain days. Generally agreed that Tuesdays & Wednesdays are best, avoid peak hours (9am, noon, etc.)
2. To greet the newsletter with the member's name
3. Title should avoid ".com", or certain words such as "newsletter", "offer", etc.

..and thats pretty much it. Despite our attempts to modify time and time again, we are noticing little success... ANY input would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks to all in advance.

[bcolflesh]

If it's an HTML format newsletter, you need to have an alternate text version. You also need to have a clear unsubscribe link.

After that, you need to be added to the major whitelists, AOL, Hotmail, etc.

[Rick42]

There is an "unsubscribe" link at the bottom of the newsletter.

How do you recommend we put the alternate text version? I am not sure I understand - both versions get sent as one?

And how can you get on the major white lists? That sounds daunting.

[bcolflesh]

You need to send multipart emails - with text in text/plain section and HTML in the text/html section.

There are numerous newsletter builder type progs on the web that will help you do this so you don't have to do any manual coding.

If you really want most of your mails to get through, forget about HTML.

AOL:
[postmaster.aol.com...]

Yahoo:
[help.yahoo.com...]

Hotmail's system is still in beta.

Typical you can just email the Contact Us of any mail system you that you see your mail getting blocked or filtered from and ask them to help.

[spaceylacie]

I've been using newsletters on my sites for years. My advice is to always send plain text, never html. After about 6 years of sending one particular newsletter on a monthly basis I decided to try sending a pretty html version of the newsletter. Next thing I know, within hours, my site host is threatening to shut down my site because of spam complaints and AOL added me to their blacklist. Turns out the html version was not compatible with certain email programs and came through as gibberish. I don't know how many of the 25,000 or so subscribers got the gibberish version but enough to scare me into never using html again. I eventually got back on the AOL "whitelist" when subscribers using AOL started complaining about not getting their copy of the newsletters, I explained and told them to go complain to AOL. Without me ever contacting anyone from AOL I was eventually taken off the "blacklist" and added to their "whitelist".