Reduce Spam Complaints from your lists

Even though people must sign up for a newsletter to receive it, there are still those who will complain that they did not want the emails. Avoid spam complaints with the following tips to reduce the risk of your newsletter being called spam.

Double Opt-In Strategy

People sign up for newsletters by entering their name and email address in a form on your website. Many newsletter publishers stop verification at this point and simply begin to send the newsletter to the email address on file. This is called a single opt-in subscription.

Double opt-in subscriptions begin with the same input of name and email address. However, there is one more step that can help reduce newsletters going out to disinterested parties. An automatic email containing a clickable link is sent to the subscriber. In order to begin receiving the newsletter, they must click on this link. This verifies that they did sign up and that the email did go through to their box.

Include Anti-Spam and Unsubscribe

Every newsletter you send out to your opt-in list should include a blurb at the bottom that tells the receiver that it is not spam, and a reminder that he or she opted in to receive this contact from you. This alone will not impress most complainers. True spam artists put this information on their emails as well. However, if you couple the anti-spam sentence with clear instructions how to unsubscribe from the newsletter, complaints will go down.

Top Quality Newsletters

The number one way to reduce spam complaints on your newsletter is by sending out a quality newsletter. If subscribers get an email every week filled with links to your website, links to other people's articles, and advertisements, it will feel like spam even if they did opt in. Quality content makes subscribers happy. Write at least one article about your topic in the newsletter every week. If you do advertise a product, combine it with a personal review of your experience with it.

Avoiding spam complaints from your newsletter subscribers comes down to three things. First, be sure that whoever signs up is actually signing up. A double opt-in strategy can help, as well as reduced bouncing email addresses on your list. Second, be sure to tell the people getting your newsletter how to unsubscribe. Saying the email is not spam is not good enough if you do not provide an out for those who do not want it. Third, write a quality newsletter. People will be less likely to complain if your information and presentation is good.

Deliverability.com: The deliverability consultant

There is a growing subculture emerging in the Email Industry. This narrow subculture is built around the role of the Email Deliverability consultant. These email folk heroes often hold ''silver bullets'' that dramatically alleviate problems caused by poor email deliverability. Whether it is resolving sender reputation issues, aligning sectors of your email program to meet legal compliance, or ensuring that all technical considerations are met, these masked magicians with assistants named Tonto can help.

In their work as Email’s Lone Rangers, these consultants can most often revive a company’s deliverability afflictions, so that key members of the organization can hop back in the saddle without too much damage done to its sender reputation.

This article was inspired by:

· Jaren Angerbauer, DeliveryVision
· Andrew Bonar,Emailexpert
· Micky Chandler, Whizardries
· Greg Kraios, Den of Deliverability
· Laura and Steve Atkins, Word to the Wise



via blog.deliverability.com