Johannesburg, 19 Jun 2008
Spam filters can be effective not only against spam and unsolicited email, but also in stopping legitimate, permission-based marketing communications.
Email users tend not to see a distinction between real spam (illegal operations sending masses of emails) and unsolicited emails (legitimate operations sending marketing emails that were either not requested or are irrelevant to the recipient). Any message that is irrelevant or unsolicited is considered spam.
According to Mia Papanicolaou, Head of eMarketing at electronic messaging specialist Striata, technology put in place to manage spam also cannot distinguish between illegal emailing operations, unsolicited emails and legitimate marketing messages.
Her advice to maximise delivery of legitimate marketing communications is to stay far away from characteristics that are normally associated with spam.
"While there are various levels of filters to consider, for the most part they all work on the same basic principles whether they are located at the ISP, company network or client side.
"Spam filters allocate points to an email according to a set of rules based on: type fonts too big or small, the number of images, words used in the text, font colour, subject line, the "from" wording, the "from and 'reply" addresses; the unsubscribe message and the percentage of HTML code within the email."
Apart from the rules around the email content and headers, your communication can fail to reach the recipient if there are too many messages being delivered to one company, or if the IP address from which the email was sent has been blacklisted (blocked)."
"To communicate over email successfully, marketers need to stay ahead of the game," says Papanicolaou, "Spammers use many tricks to get around the filters and with each new trick the rules will change. It is important to understand the industry and invest in research to remain one step ahead."
She adds that simple steps can be taken to avoid having legitimate communications being seen as spam. These include:
* Maintaining a close relationship with ISPs so that they know the sender, what is sent and are aware that the emails are legitimate, permission-based messages;
* Sending emails through a spam checking tool and identifying which issues can be fixed without detracting from the impact of the message;
* Stay away from the hard sell in your subject lines. Never try to fool recipients into opening the email by making the subject line sound like a personal message between friends;
* The colours of text and links should be taken from the web-safe palette in Photoshop, as anything else gets picked up by spam filters;
* There are many words or phrases that should never be used in a legitimate marketing email as they are typical of spam messages.
Papanicolaou says spammers constantly change the way they send emails and hence rules and spam filters will become more refined.
"Staying abreast of trends and changes is of the utmost importance for digital marketers. This is an evolving route to market and any loss of focus on market changes will result in declining delivery and open rates."
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