4 Reasons You Need To Avoid Spam Filters
Spam is prevalent across the world with more than half of all mail being counted as spam.Spam filters are an email marketer’s worst nightmare. Bounces are fairly easy to deal with by removing the bad subscriber from your list. However, you are often left unaware that your important communications are being placed inside spam folders because of a mailbox’s filters.
There are many reasons why this is bad for your business. Here are numerous reasons why you need to avoid Spam filters.
1. It Lowers Your Open Rate
The first, and most obvious, impact of your emails landing in your list’s spam folder is that it will lower your email’s open rate. Too few people check their spam folders. This does have significant consequences for customers, as too many important emails are often mistakenly sent to the spam folder. However, it also lowers your open rate, and that can make it harder for you to communicate important messages.
A lower open rate also damages the reputation of your list and can make it hard to justify your email marketing campaigns. Finally, your email marketing ROI will be much lower if people aren’t reading your emails.
2. It Damages Your Reputation
Your mail being sent to spam folders does mean that your mail’s servers get a bad reputation. Whether this is from the incoming server or the fact that seeing your mail in the spam filter automatically damages your reputation with subscribers is not important, your mail being in the spam folder is damaging to your reputation.
A damaged reputation is a sure way for your subscribers to not buy from you in the future. And some filters share information, so your mail continuously being picked up by spam filters means that your mail is being sent to one folder, and can sometimes mean others in the future will send your mail to spam filters. This is especially true if people use the same servers such as gmail, hotmail, etc..
3. Costs Increase, Revenues Fall
In order for you to avoid spam filters, once you’ve been caught in their trap, you have to spend lots of money to solve the problem. For instance, you might need to invest in new mail servers or new templates for your emails. You might also need to contact consultants who can help you improve your reputation.
At the same time, as less people are reading your emails, fewer people will be visiting your website and your revenue will drop. That means that email marketing, that usually has the best ROI in the digital marketing industry, isn’t offering the returns that you should expect.
4. Your List Will Get Smaller
If you follow best practices, at some point you’ll clean your list. This should be done every two to three months. If someone doesn’t open an email for three months, because your mail has been placed in their spam folder, you will most likely remove them.
For some people, this won’t be a great loss. They no longer want to subscribe to your mail and want to move on. However, some people are probably great leads for your business and losing a section of your list because your mail is sent to the spam folder is a huge loss. In addition, as you lose people on your mailing list, the potential revenue from your email marketing gets lower.
Finally, losing people on a list means you have to find new subscribers. However, their lifespan on your list could be cut short because your mail is caught by their spam filters. It’s an endless cycle that needs to be broken for you to realise the potential revenues from email marketing.
Conclusion
Being caught in an email spam filter is not good news. It is expensive to resolve and can cause significant long term damage to your business’ reputation. So, the best thing to do is to stop your emails from being caught in the spam trap and follow the best practices.
What tips do you have for avoiding the spam filter? Have you resolved this issue?
Let us know in the comments below.
Image by AndyPandy from Pixabay
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What Happens When You Spam Your Contact List
What happens when you send spam to your contact list?
Email marketing is a powerful sales tool. But, like with all marketing and sales tools, there’s an element of the numbers game; the more marketing you send, the more sales you’ll achieve. Therefore, there are those organisations who are willing to ignore laws and email etiquette and send copious amounts of emails to subscribers or to email addresses they’ve had no contact with.
This is called spamming.
While this might sound like a good way to grow your customer base, it’s not. There are significant ramifications associated with this practice. Here’s what could happen if you spam your contact list.
1. You Get Fined
If your contact list didn’t give you permission to contact them, then you could be fined. Many nations have laws against unsolicited marketing emails, and the fines can be high. While most people ignore spam, the more you send out, the greater the chance you will be reported to the relevant authorities.
Never buy an email contact list and always seek permission of any website user, consumer, etc. before you send an email.
2. Higher Unsubscribe Rate
The more people you have on your list, the more profitable your email marketing campaigns are going to be. That is why this loss can be so devastating, but 53% of consumers say they get too many emails from the brands they subscribed to and this has led them to discontinue their subscription.
However, don’t send too few emails, as this can also be a reason for unsubscribing. According to research, once every two weeks seems to be a good frequency.
3. Poor Open And Click Through Rates
If you continually email your contacts, they are going to get bored of your marketing messages, especially if you are sending the same message all the time. This often results in your marketing messages being ignored, binned and forgotten. Statistically speaking this can mean that your business’ open and click through rates plummet against industry standards.
There are two ways to solve this. Firstly, reduce the amount you are sending emails to your contact list. Secondly, change the message of your email marketing campaigns, so they become more useful.
4. Your Server Gets Reported
If you are using your own mail server, then that can be reported, and this can make it difficult for future campaigns. A black-listed mail server can sometimes be prevented from sending emails to other servers altogether, so future campaigns will never reach their intended audience.
There is only one way to solve a blacklisted server, and that is to start again with a new server. This is an expensive, time-consuming task.
5. Your Reputation Is Ruined
Organisations that spam their contacts are often remembered, especially if they are known to the audience. This can have a devastating impact on a brand’s reputation both online and offline. One example could be the damage it can do to the referrals your brand gets from subscribers. Many people won’t recommend a brand that spams them. So, you’ll lose a sales avenue.
You’ll also find that you will have to manage your reputation more carefully if you send spam – dealing with negative comments all the time on social media, in your inbox and other marketing avenues. Customers you contact for a follow-up phone call will also be more hostile to your approaches. Therefore, your sales team will find it harder to sell.
Conclusion
Email marketing is a powerful tool for any business to use to collect information and sell to a specific audience. It is also a tool that can be abused with spam. However, this will always end badly for the company sending spam emails.
Be mindful of the number of emails you are sending to potential customers to ensure you aren’t spamming your audience. It could help you make more sales.
How often do you send emails to your marketing list? Have you tried reducing the number?
Let us know in the comments below.
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