What to Avoid in E-Mail Marketing Copy
October 24, 2008

I must admit I'm sort of a walking dichotomy. Here's why:

What I love and what drives me crazy are cut from the same cloth, and I have to wear both garments each day.

I write for a living. Writing for myself and businesses such as yours makes me immeasurably happy.

Better yet, e-mail empowers me to run a really fun writing business from home. I even write plenty of e-mail marketing copy for my clients.

But as the universe would require, every boon requires a bane. The same e-mail that serves me (and which I serve) often plagues me.

I, like you, am attacked by undesired, unsolicited e-mail marketing messages that want to make me richer, stronger, safer, funnier, more beautiful and more gratified.

A ton of new e-mails are now promising to make me (gulp) more endowed. Now how in the heck are those companies finding me? The scary truth is they simply have their ways.

The inundation of e-mail marketing copy has fueled a cash-cow industry for spam filters, many of which are becoming hair-trigger sensitive.

For those of you who write e-mail marketing copy (or know those who do), here are some ways to send text without having it arrested immediately by cyberspace's secret spam police (who, by the way, are informed by the audiences you annoy, so you're accommodating the latter as well):

1. Avoid using the word "free" in your copy (especially in the subject line). I know this isn't always possible, as "free" can often be the main hook of your offer or message. Just be aware the secret spam police are hunting for that word.

2. Don't try to fool the spam filters by adding extra letters or changing a letter to an asterisk or other symbol in your sure-to-be-spam copy. Today's sophisticated programs will snicker at this sophomoric trick.

3. Know that exclamation points or dollar signs in the subject line blow trumpets announcing your spam's arrival.

4. Avoid excessive capitalization in both the subject line and body copy (e.g., SIGN UP NOW SO YOU CAN GET YOUR FREE $25 GIFT CARD! SERIOUSLY! YOU DON'T WANT TO MISS OUT ON THIS TOTALLY, UNBELIEVABLY EXCLUSIVE OFFER!). Now that's pretty annoying, wouldn't you agree?

5. Write simple text-based e-mails that are light on pretty pictures. If you really want to wow your audience with a bold, colorful and creative graphic presentation, give readers a link to another Web page.

6. Strongly consider sending e-mail from your own domain name (mine is jdavis@eloquentarrow.com). The secret spam police love to swarm around the popular and oft-abused big-name domains such as hotmail, yahoo, msn and aol.

These rules won't guarantee your messages evade arrest, but they'll certainly give them a singing prayer.

Before you send out a newsletter or marketing message by e-mail, try testing it (for free) against a popular spam filter.

Simply mail the transmission first to:

frugalfun-spamcheck@sitesell.net?subject=TEST

Important! Use "Test" as the first word in your subject line and then follow it with the real subject line.

The feedback should let you know your message's likelihood of being thrown into the spam slammer for pending execution.

May (most of) your e-mail marketing be henceforth opened and read!