Writing Tip Wednesday: Make sure your Newsletters don’t hit the Spam Folder

Last week we talked about David Gaughran’s top ten tips for improving your mailing list open rate. One of those tips is so important, that I want to make it a focus today.

To improve your open rate, you need to make sure that your email newsletter lands in recipients’ inboxes, not their spam or promotions folders. Email providers tag emails as spam if they contain certain spam words. Here’s how to avoid them.

Start with this list of spam words. Make sure that you do not use these words in your email subject line. Note that FREE is a spam word, as is the term “exclusive deal” and even the word “offer.”

Instead of “free gift,” try using “present” or “offering.” Instead of “deal,” try using “sale” or even a word such as “tribute,” “reward,” or “bounty.” Use the online thesaurus to guide you to the right words.

You can also run your emails through online spam check tools to see how “spammy” they are and fix them accordingly. Check out Active Campaign’s spam checker here.

In addition to avoiding these spammy words, do the following to ensure that your emails do not get relegated to the spam or promotions folder:

1. Avoid using exclamation marks in your email subjects.
2. Avoid using all caps in your email subjects.
3. Avoid including links to sketchy websites (I’m not sure what qualifies as “sketchy.” This will undoubtedly be another subject for another day).
4. Avoid colorful or different-sized fonts.
5. Don’t use broken HTML code. Always double-check your links!
6. Make sure you include an unsubscribe button in your emails.

I hope that helps! Try these tips and let me know how your email open rate improves!

Happy promoting!