Site Newsletter to Junk Folders

[kjs50]

Hello,

I just got out our very first email newsletter in over a year, and didn't quite have the impact I thought it would. After talking to friends on the newsletter list, it looks like it got filtered out as junk automatically by yahoo mail, etc...

what are the ways to get a legitimate email to customers? the is a pure opt-in list and not spamming at all.

[shady]

I'm not sure of the exact algorithms, but you could look at the following:

1) Are emails individually sent OR using CC's
2) Are the headers as they should be? (Return address matches sending address for example)

Regards
Shady

[bbrooks]

I use several different spam filters to check incoming mail and have noticed that the following factors usually cause a message's spam score to be elevated:

- excessive use of caps or exclamation points
- explanations such as 'You are receiving this message because'
- telling your reader to 'click here'
- use of the word 'free','completely free','free trials','urgent', etc.
- HTML only mail with no text version
- incorrectly configured headers (e.g. no valid reply-to address)

I was very surprised at the inadvertent mistakes which can cause a message to be classified as spam. You can view several hundred rules which many spam programs use to filter at: [au2.spamassassin.org...]

You might also want also want to run your outgoing messages past a free spam filter check service such as SpamCheck which will give you your Spam score and highlight terms which may be causing your message to be filtered.

Hope that helps...

[edited by: bbrooks at 1:51 am (utc) on Nov. 15, 2003]

[jimbeetle]

bbrooks, Welcome to WW [webmasterworld.com], but you might want to edit out the links in your post.

kjs50,

As ISPs put more and more spam controls into effect its getting increasingly difficult to get legitimate opt-in e-mail through. And its not only the "on-page" things that you can control (subject, internal text, header info, etc.), but also "how" it's sent.

AOL for instance has put in a filter that checks the number of messages from the same sender with the same characteristics in a given time period; anything above the threshold gets kicked out. So, if you use a mailing service it can't burst the messages out all at once but has to send them in smaller batches throughout the day.

And it goes on. I have Outlook set to "gray out" suspected spam. I'm always surprised at the number of organizations that i know are above board who's e-mails are listed as suspect. Some people forget they subscribed and hit their ISPs 'report spam' button or find it easier to use that than to unsubscribe. So the newsletter publisher winds up on spam lists.

One of the weirdest chase your tail bits: If you publish a legitimate newsletter you should always supply "unsubscribe" information. Yet one of the indicators some spam cops look for in the body of a message is 'to unsubscribe.' Go figure.

I'd love to get back to publishing a newsletter again, I enjoyed it and it always gave a nice burst of traffic. No more.

Jim

[divaone]

if sending emails to aol accounts (and possible others) be sure to send no more than 3-5 mails at a time with a threshold send time of 10-15 seconds. if aol has been an issue there are several detailed pages on the topic at aol.com in their help section.

if those on your email list also visit your website, you can certainly add a statement alerting them that a newsletter is sent out every so often. at least they can be on the lookout. this is far from a fool-proof solution, but may help a bit.

One of the weirdest chase your tail bits: If you publish a legitimate newsletter you should always supply "unsubscribe" information. Yet one of the indicators some spam cops look for in the body of a message is 'to unsubscribe.' Go figure.

OT, i've never used an unsubscribe link (or instructions to send email to unsubscribe) in emails sent to me. its a sure-fired way of letting spammers know you really exist :o)

[kjs50]

Thanks for all the useful info guys. I'll sort through the anti-spam information and use that to hopefully better tailor my newsletter. Also I'll space out the messages over a much longer period of time as well.

[Shannon Moore]

OT, i've never used an unsubscribe link (or instructions to send email to unsubscribe) in emails sent to me. its a sure-fired way of letting spammers know you really exist )

Unfortunately, it's also the way legitamite, opt-in emails allow users to indicate they no longer wish to receive mailings.

I run one small, opt-in newsletter for about 2,500 subscribers that was a great traffic and word-of-mouth generator (haven't sent out a mailing in a year, however). My problem with the opt-out link and language, included as the last couple lines of every newsletter I mail out, is a small percentage of recipients reflexively click that and then email me requesting to be added back to the list because they'd "accidentally unsubscribed". The language was pretty clear about what the link would do -- I think some folks are just so used to spam that even AFTER they've read a useful newsletter they signed up for previously, when they see "You can <link>unsubscribe to this newsletter</link> at any time..." their spam eradication urge kicks in and <CLICK>...

What's a good mailer that allows for batched/time-delayed mailings? I use Subscribe Me Lite, a freeware perl script, but it sends mailings out in one fell swoop.

[kjs50]

i'm using infacta's group mail pro and it worked very nicely. it can let me configure the settings so i can space out my batches up to an hour apart, and I can control how many mails get sent out in each batch.

It'll take much longer this way, but the good thing is it's all automatic and hopefully more emails will reach.

When I sent a test email, i got it fine through Yahoo. But when my mailings went out (25 messages in a batch each 30 seconds) then a lot more went in the junk folder through Yahoo.

[Marketing Guy]

Have a look at this BBC article from today:

[news.bbc.co.uk...]

People are fed-up with what is being called "second degree spam", e-mails from companies about products they are not interested in, says a survey.

Even if people signed up to be sent news or offers, NCorp's survey says over half see them as irrelevant spam.

TBH, anything I get in that has an image on it gets binned immediately. If it's not a personal email, then I dont want to know about it.

Cant help feeling many people are the same these days.

Scott

[divaone]

What's a good mailer that allows for batched/time-delayed mailings? I use Subscribe Me Lite, a freeware perl script, but it sends mailings out in one fell swoop.

i prefer the windows program g-lock easymail pro, but im sure there are plenty others out there as well.

[Herath]

Somthing that we do is convert our news letter to an GIF/JPG image and send out to customers as a simple attachment.

So the e-mail is nothing but a subject and a picture attachment. No links: obviously, but it helps us to get a message accross to our customers.