Newsletter, Mailing list and Direct Marketing

As the number of email marketing increases, so are the number of legitimate emails that will eventually be flagged as Spam. With this in mind, how do you ensure that your legitimate emails to your users and subscribers are not sent straight to the junk folder?

Well, here are a few tips to help.

Consider using email authentication methods, such as SPF, and Domain Keys to prove that your emails and your domain name belong together, and to prevent spoofing of your domain name. This is very vital - you must explore it for maximum delivery of all your mails.

Check your reverse DNS to make sure the IP address of your mail server points to the domain name that you use for sending mail.

Another thing you should consider is to make sure that the reply-to address is a valid and exists for your domain and address. Use the full, real name of the addressee in the To field, not just the email-address (e.g. "Helen Hunt" <helen@blogger.com> ).

Most people make un-subscribing unnecessarily difficult - make sure that you don't follow that route. Provide your users very easy and simple ways to opt out. Note that if lots of users increasingly press Spam because they can't find way to un-subscribe, your domain will definitely be flagged, so make it easy for them.

Finally, ask your users to add your From address to their contacts when they complete their order, which, if they do so, will help a lot.

If you follow these simple steps and no one else on your shared hosting server is spamming, your emails have 90% chance of landing in the intended inbox.

Did the tips inspire, help or...whatever, leave a comment below :)