Are your e-mails getting through?

Lately, businesses and individuals who rely on e-mail (legitimately) are finding it increasingly difficult to stay in touch with their contacts and readers. More and more e-mails just aren't arriving at their destination.

"Neither rain nor snow nor sleet nor hail..."

When it comes to e-mail, there is no such guarantee that your mail will go through. Email newsletters are especially vulnerable, but any kind of email communication can suffer the same fate. That includes important business communications.

If you use the *wrong* words, style, or format in the e-mail that you send, your e-mail may not get to your recipient. It may be stopped and junked by the any of the spam filters used by individuals, their ISPs, or by their e-mail hosts. The email industry calls a *legitimate* email that's been blocked a "false positive." Personally, I call it "bad business."

Your intended recipient won't always know why they haven't heard from you. The recipient may assume that *you* have stopped sending e-mail to him or her. If you're in business and someone does not receive an e-mail they expect from you, they can question your reliability, or wonder if you have gone out-of-business. That's not good for your business.

Before we go any farther, NEVER ever spam. It can't be said often enough: never send any e-mail to anyone who has not asked to receive it.

Legitimate e-mailers resort to awkward measures to avoid having their e-mails or e-zines incorrectly blocked as spam.

They may put strange characters into words that are known to trigger spam filters (eg. fr^e), or they may use unusual phrases instead of standard phrases for unsubscribe instructions or other information. Others have stopped sending their newsletters in the full version, and now send only an issue announcement with a link to an on-line version (where they don't have to censor their communications with their readers). Still others are moving to other forms of communication such as blogs.

None of these kinds of measures are the real solution.

On-line and off-line businesses need dependable email communication to function. Stop-gap tactics hurt the reader who wants (or needs) to receive the e-mail (and wants to read it as legible e-mail text) as much as it hurts the person or business trying to send it.

Ultimately, the real solution will come when true spam is no longer being sent.

In the meantime, there are a few things you can do to make it more likely that your email will reach its destined reader.

How to increase the odds that your e-mail will get through...

First, you'll want to avoid having that email accidentally deleted by the recipient themselves.

It's good to remember the deluge of email that many average people are forced to sort through on a daily basis. Here's a few things you can do to help both of you:

Make sure your "FROM" address/name is the one that the person is most likely to recognize and be familiar with.
Always try to send your emails from the same address, and ask your recipient to "white-list" that address, or add it to their "Friends" or "Buddies" list.
Avoid "spammy" subject lines. (It's useful to keep an eye on the current crops of real spam you receive yourself to know what kinds of subject lines to avoid.)
Use subject lines that clearly indicate what the email is and where its coming from. For example, an ezine is more likely to be recognized if it has the name of the newsletter at the beginning of every subject line. One way to do that is simply to put [Newsletter Name] in the subject line of every issue.

Next, you'll want to try to make sure your email gets into your recipient's mailbox in the first place.

The truth is that, right now, as things are, some legitimate emails *will* be blocked by filters set up by email service providers, no matter what you do.

However, it *is* possible to dramatically improve the chances of the email getting through.

One way is to use one of the services available to check out-going emails against spam filter protocols. These services allow you to see if the email has elements that could trigger a filter to block it, *before* you send the email. Sometimes this type of service is available as part of a package of services a business might already be using.

One really good reason to use a service to check your emails, at least a few times, is the amount that you will learn about what will trigger a spam filter to block an email. Sometimes, it's not what you'd expect. Many legitimate words and phrases used by real businesses on a regular basis are targets. Sometimes it's just how you lay out the format of your email. Once you've become familiar with spam flags, you'll be able to keep them in mind as you are putting emails together. Do go back and check emails periodically because spam filter flags can and do change over time.

One company, SiteSell(TM), has made their SpamChecker service available for anyone to use, FREE of charge.

Just follow the directions below to find out if the e-mail you are about to send is likely to reach your reader's in-box.

Here's how it works...

STEP 1:

Copy-and-paste your subject, and then add the word "TEST" (without the quotes, in UPPER CASE) in front of your subject to indicate this is a test e-mail. (If the subject does NOT start with TEST, SiteSell will assume it's REAL spam and delete it).

Here's a sample subject...

TESTFlower-Lovers Ezine #007: Peonies for the Yukon

STEP 2:

Copy-and-paste the rest of your e-zine or e-mail and simply send it, exactly the way you would send it to your recipient, to...

(Note: By submitting your email for spamcheck analysis, you consent to receive the in-house advertising from SiteSell that is included within the report you receive.)

You'll get your report back by email...

The SpamChecker report (which arrives within minutes) will tell you how good or bad your e-mail is, from a spam-detector's point of view. You will receive a full, FREE report of all corrections that you should make to your e-mail, in order to stay out of the junk folders.

NOTE: If you sent the TEST from a different email program & provider than the one you use to actually send out your newsletter, the score may vary from what your newsletter would actually get. This is because part of the score relates to the sender identity and location. Keeping that in mind, the score is otherwise a very good indicator of problem areas. The results might suprise you.

All of the above strategies are simple ones that any individual or small business can use to improve the reliability of their email communications.

All Faux Grain & e-fg-zine material is presented in good faith, but is for educational and informational purposes only. No warranties or guarantees of any kind are expressed or implied. Read the full disclaimer.