In the last post, I covered the cleaning and maintaining of your contact lists to help maximize the deliverability for email newsletters. Today, I will review the importance of good subject lines in your email messages.
Have you ever received an email from an unknown source with a subject line that says something like, “SALE SALE $$ SALE SALE $$,” or “FREE Prescription Drugs?” Even if these emails came from legitimate businesses, these subject lines would most certainly activate the spam filters from most email clients.
If you have taken the time to create your email newsletter and establish an identity with your customers, a bad subject line could spoil all of your hard work by having your email flagged as spam. Plus, a good, clean subject line can often determine whether or not a customer opens your email newsletter. Subject lines should let the customer know immediately what your email message is about, and help them easily recognize your business.
When you write subject lines, it is best not to use all capital letters or have an abundance of special characters. Having a particularly long subject line could also get your emails flagged as spam. Make sure that your subject line has something to do with your email message content; one of the major provisions of the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 is that email messages must not have misleading subject lines.
There are literally hundreds of ways in which subject lines can trigger spam filters. When you create your newsletter using an email marketing service like iContact, you have the option to run a spam check in the software before you send your emails. Running a spam check will tell you which parts or your email, including your subject lines, will trigger the spam filters, and allow you to edit your email messages to fix the problem.
Thanks for reading, and please keep checking back for more email marketing tips.
Cheers,
Ryan Allis
