Scott Richter, famous spammer.
As you listen to the politicians speak and decide how you are going to vote, there is another election going on all the time you may not know about. It’s the race to be elected a spammer.
In this election, the polls are open 24/7 and if you’re not careful, you will get elected.
The spammer election has been going on for several years now and it’s becoming dangerously important everyday. It all started with the concept of flagging unsolicited e-mail as spam. Most desktop e-mail clients have a way to do this and it acts locally trying to learn (adapt) what you consider spam and will usually result in the message being routed to a “spam” or a “junk” folder. This is how your recipients cast their virtual ballot.
Interesting Fact: Over 1/3 of Infusionsoft’s outbound e-mail is sent to the big three ISPs: AOL, Yahoo and MSN.
Over the years, this concept has evolved into something bigger via the use of popular Web based e-mail clients like AOL, Yahoo and MSN. Now, the data is collected and is used by each provider to form a sender reputation score which is calculated from people who report messages as spam. In theory, this works great, but the reality is that the definition of spam is very unclear. Many people use the “Report Spam” button for any e-mail message they find intrusive, don’t remember, feel overwhelmed by or just want to stop receiving.
My friends, as your political advisor, I will gladly help ensure that you are not elected to this most dubious position by following these four steps to improve your e-mail deliverability and lower your spam complaints.
- Assess the Damage
It is quite possible that you have already been elected (reported) a spammer. If you are noticing poor deliverability to AOL, Yahoo, MSN or other large ISPs, this is most likely the case.Always conduct yourself within the rules — our Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) prohibits the use of renting, buying or otherwise send unsolicited e-mail. You can read more, here [pdf].If you are not a spammer, then the first thing you should do is contact your Email Service Provider (ESP) so they can check and see if you are being blocked. If this is the case they can contact the ESP which is blocking you and usually resolve the problem. If you are blocked again, the probability of the ESP unblocking you (again) is much less likely — so you need to follow my complete game plan, as detailed below.
- Identify your Supporters
If subscribers are not strong supporters, they are more likely to hurt you then help you. If you have been sending e-mail to less engaged subscribers and are not culling them from your list, the odds of them report you as spam gets exponentially higher. I recommend e-mail marketers segment contacts who have not been inactive for more than six months. Take these contacts and place them in a “farewell” e-mail follow-up sequence where you send an e-mail that more actively identifies engaged users with special, discounts or other actions. For example, it may just be to click a link or confirm their address on record. You may think you are losing opportunity, but you are really just cutting out the dead weight, often felt by high-risk contacts. - Declare your Intentions
If people know what to expect from you, they are less likely to report you as spam (but they still could). Much like in politics, constituents want to know how their candidates will act if elected, but feel betrayed when they are lied to. People are very frustrated when they trust you with their e-mail and you don’t do what they initially expected. These frustrated subscribers will elect you a spammer, often with great pleasure.Make sure you let your contacts know when they sign up for something, exactly what they will be receiving. If you are offering a free download and want to send follow-up, clearly set the expectation that you’re going to market to them (like send special offers.) Better yet, give them the choice to sign up for specific materials. In addition, let prospects know how frequent they will receive your e-mail — one of the easiest ways to do this is to put the frequency in the expectation of the content (e.g., “The Monthly,” The Daily Thingy,” etc). - Qualify New Supporters
People who use email confirmation or double opt-in have substantially cleaner lists and receive much less complaints. It’s not beyond people to enter invalid email addresses in Web Forms. For instance, here is a quick example I found on the mail server:
okay-this_a**hole_ad_is_really_f******_annoying@a**holes.comAs you can see, this isn’t a valid e-mail address. Sending to these addresses is not only a waste of your time, but will also cause difficulty with ISPs who will block you when they receive too many messages addressed to invalid recipients.
My friends, you are on your way to improving your e-mail reputation.
These are only a few steps to cut down on spam complaints. Every market is different and you may need to adapt to more best practices than what I’ve outlined. I guarantee you will see a drop in spam complaints if you clean your list, set proper expectations and use a double opt-in process. Now get out there and lose this race!
[Image credit: Kenn Wilson on Flickr]
This post Congratulations, You’ve been Elected a Spammer! was first published on the Big Ideas Blog.