Launching a bulk email campaign can be an effective way to reach a mass audience without incurring the high costs typically involved in using traditional advertising methods such as radio or television. However, the downside to this is that unlimited email marketing has been abused at times by those who send out mass emails without following proper procedure or allowing consumers the choice of continuing to receive such solicitations. Below are some tips for using email marketing while avoiding being labeled as a spammer.
Learn how spam scores are calculated
A number of ISPs and anti-spam programs will assign spam scores to various activities to make it easier to identify and block spammers. If your score passes a certain threshold, it will result in your emails being classified as spam. Some of the criteria used in compiling spam scores are subject lines with text in all caps, usage of certain keywords which have been placed on anti-spam watch lists, heavy use of html, and sending an excessive volume of emails over a given period of time.
To avoid triggering anti-spam volume filters, you may want to use bulk emailing services that will break up your email sends into smaller portions. This allows for a multitude of emails to be sent over staggered time periods rather than all at once.
Send a bulk email blast from identifiable sources
If an anti-spam program doesn’t recognize the domain from which you are sending emails via a reverse DNS search, where the IP address and registered domain name are checked to make sure they match, your emails may be labeled spam. Check with your email provider to verify that the IP address matches the domain name.
Get a static IP address
Sending emails from dynamic IP addresses, which change from time to time, may result in your emails being considered to be spam. It can be worth checking your IP address to see if it is static or dynamic. If it is the latter, you may want to ask your ISP to provide you with a static IP, which most will do upon request, sometimes for a small additional fee.
Send from a valid email address
Some anti-spam filters are able to detect addresses which don’t accept return email, and label email sent from them as spam, given that senders of bulk email must give recipients of their emails a chance to opt-out and avoid receiving further emails if they choose not to. Use an email address which allows return mail to reduce the chance your emails will be classified as spam.