Don’t send spam!
Let’s start with the obvious. It’s a great idea to send valuable, relevant emails to people who actually want to hear from you. That means only emailing people who have subscribed to your emails. Obey relevant laws and rules around email marketing. If the content of your emails seems ‘spammy’, people will delete them or, worse still, mark them as spam.
Allow people to unsubscribe
Always start the email by making it clear how you acquired the recipients email address (e.g. “You are receiving this email because you subscribed for Airsquare’s monthly newsletter”) and include an obvious opt-out link (e.g. “If you no longer want to hear about Airsquare’s latest news and offers, please click here”) - this will hopefully prevent your email recipients from marking your emails as spam when they don’t want to receive them anymore.
Double opt-in
A good way to make sure that you are emailing genuine potential customers and people who want to receive your emails, is to use a double opt-in.This means that, in order to sign up for your emails, people must submit their email address using a subscribe link. Then you send a welcome email to this email address, telling people how often they can expect to hear from you and providing another link to confirm that they want to receive emails from you. This prevents people from signing up with bogus email addresses.
Careful use of words
Spam filters all work differently; some focus on keywords. Check through the content of your emails for any words that are usually associated with spam: words around the subjects of sex, gambling and erectile medications are obvious candidates, as well as words like free, multiple $$$ signs, ‘get rich’, guarantee, hello (in the subject line), offer, XXX, win etc. Basically avoid any words that you may have seen in spam emails!
Content is key
Ensure that you don’t have too many images in your email, especially images that run on ‘Flash’, as these will often be marked as spam. It’s best to have a plain-text based email. Don’t use coloured text. Good, relevant content should ensure that your email gets through. If you send people open, honest and informative emails, it’s more likely they will be interested in what you have to say and actually want to receive your emails.
Subject line
Make sure that you actually fill in the subject line. Also make sure that your subject line is relevant and doesn't contain words that could be viewed as spam (e.g. hello, you) or lots of punctuation (exclamation marks or lots of capital letters). It should be simple, concise and relevant.
Can they see who it’s from?
Make sure that there is a name (your company name or preferably a person from your organisation) in the ‘from’ field of your mail, as this will make the email more recognisable and familiar at first glance. Its also good to personalise the email with the recipient’s name - sounds more friendly too!
Use a spam checker tool
Before sending your email out, always put the content of the email through a spam checker tool. These are handy programmes that comb through the content looking for anything that could trigger a spam filter to reject your email. They’ll highlight anything that you might need to change. Some of these tools are free. Check out these:
http://www.lyris.com/resources/email-marketing/contentchecker/download
http://www.programmersheaven.com/webtools/Spam-Checker/spamchecker.aspx
Don't send attachments
It’s difficult for attachments to get through spam filters so avoid them if you can help it.
Avoid using Bcc
If you put lots and lots of names in the Bcc field, the email may be marked as spam.
Don’t use URL’s as link text
This is a another red flag for the spam filters. So when you want to place a link in your email, try using ‘click here’ or the website’s name.
Ask recipients to ‘white-list’ your email address
This means asking business contacts to add your email address to their contacts list as this will make it easier for your emails to make it into their inbox.
Replies
Make sure that you have an inbox set up to receive any replies to your email. It’s a good idea to have someone focus on attending to these.
Complaints
Have a plan to deal with people complaining about receiving your emails. People may forget that they signed up (or simply have changed their minds) and may complain. What now? It’s a good idea to send a quick, concise apology as soon as possible - have an email template ready. Quickly remove that person’s name from your email list, so they don’t receive any further emails from you (you don't want them to mark your emails as spam!).