Why ‘Mark as Spam’ is Worse than the ‘Delete’ Button

Whether you’re a marketer or an email recipient, you know that spam is synonymous to annoying. No one wants to be bombarded by a huge chunk of emails you did not subscribe to. But today, the way people define spam has evolved. Even your opt-in emails can be marked as spam, and it’s probably the scariest nightmare for marketers, worse than being moved to trash.

Statistics show that 70% of ‘this is spam’ complaints are from marketing emails. For marketers, this high percentage is alarming. It could mean that your next email can trigger another spam complaint.

Don’t let your marketing emails be marked as spam or simply go to the spam folder. Follow these tips to ensure that your relationship with your recipients continues.

Make Unsubscribe Button Obvious

Even if recipients signed up for your emails, there will come a point when they would feel that you’re sending too much. The last thing you would want them to do is to label you as spam.

Be sure that they will think of unsubscribing first before hitting that spam button. The simplest, effective way to do this is to make your unsubscribe button obvious.

Follow the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003

Be a responsible email marketing by understanding and following the CAN-SPAM Act. It’s a set of rules created for commercial emails, including B2B emails, to protect recipients by affording them the right to stop you from emailing them. Non-compliance of the law means violation and is subject to penalties of up to $40,654.

Don’t Purchase a List

It may be tempting to grow your list in an instant, but purchasing a list is like paying for the end of your email marketing strategy. Using them can send a trigger to mailbox providers that you just broke the rules by blasting unsolicited emails.

Get Whitelisted

There are many ways to do this, but the easiest is to avail an email marketing service as they ask mailbox providers like Gmail and Yahoo Mail to whitelist Internet Protocol (IP) address or domain as part of the job. That’s why you need to check the reputation of your EMS.

Meanwhile, if you are doing this on your own, you need to ask your recipient to whitelist you by adding you to their contact list. Put that reminder in your email so they can see it right away. If they are really interested in receiving your emails, this should not be hard to do.

Be Sure Your Email Authentication is Enabled

Spammers are creative and resourceful, and one of their tricks include spoofing emails from your domain. This tactic can blacklist you even if you’re not blasting emails. You can avoid this by checking is your email authentication is enabled.

Don’t Play Dirty

Forget those old-school email practices that can do you more harm than good. These include deceptive subject lines, misleading claims, hashbusting or inserting characters in the subject link to deceive spam filters and hiding text message in an image tool.

Being marked as spam is far worse than being removed from the inbox. Follow the best email marketing practices and know how not to be a spammer to take care of your reputation. By being a responsible email marketer, you do not only achieve your business goals with a clean strategy. You also keep a good relationship with your email recipients.