Learn About Spam

Avoid having your email messages instantly deleted by your subscribers. If your emails are confused as spam, guess what, your customers won’t get a chance to read them. Your email only sometimes ends up in the spam folder or junk folder!

Therefore, you need to avoid these 4 common mistakes in your email marketing campaign.

1. Spam-trigger words in your email messages and subject line
2. Don’t remove “unsubscribes” IMMEDIATELY
3. Don’t review the latest spam laws every month
4. Don’t include your contact info and physical address at the end of the emails, just like the CAN-SPAM act of 2003 says

Get more of your subscribers to see your emails, simply because you keep up with the latest email regulations. Go ahead and use these 2 tips every time in your bulk email marketing campaign.

Tip 1

Don’t write these 10 words in your email messages and subject line, unless you back up their use with substantial information.

1. Check or money order
2. 100% satisfied
3. Special promotion
4. Money-back guarantee
5. Cards accepted
6. Money back
7. Order today
8. Order now!
9. Extra income
10. Money-back guarantee

Tip 2

As a savvy online entrepreneur, you must stay on top of spam laws.

Just like you stay on top of the news and sports, be always aware of what your emails need to have to look “legit,” not like spam. Just add www.spamlaws.com to your monthly news websites to read.

Today, make sure you read and understand the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 by visiting www.spamlaws.com/federal/108s877.shtml. By the way, did you know it stood for Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act?

For now you can do these 4 steps so your emails conform to the CAN-SPAM act of 2003:

1. Have clear instructions on how to opt out and a functioning opt-out link.
   For example, “if you no longer want to receive these messages, please click on the link below” and make sure that link does work!
2. The sender’s physical address needs to be in the email message.
   Usually your address is at the end of the email after your signature. If you work on your online business from an office, the office’s complete physical address needs to be in the email. If you work from home, your home address needs to be in the email.
3. Use an authentic non-misleading subject line.
   Your first paragraph needs to be related to the subject line.
4. Use a consistent “from” address
   Always send your emails from a specific email address. You can save time just doing it once by setting a specific email address in your autoresponder.

By avoiding the 10 spam trigger words in your email messages you’ll let your subscribers read your emails. Commercial email will get more regulated. Using the email marketing tip of 4 steps so your emails conform to the CAN-SPAM ACT of 2003, you won’t risk being accused of spam. Your legitimate emails won’t be left behind because you’re now keeping up with the latest spam laws on www.spamlaws.com!

Don’t think that knowing the latest about spam is time-consuming. Remember, your competitors might already be aware of them. You don’t want your subscribers and targeted traffic to go to them, right?

Author:
Ashley Keane helps people start an internet business they love, and grow it with email marketing tips on http://www.EarnYourOwnMoney.com. Visit http://www.earnyourownmoney.com/salewithEmail.html to get your FREE 7 Tips NOW on “How to Automate Your Email Chores and Still Increase Your Sales.”

What Is Spam?

Spam is about consent, not about content. It doesn’t matter what the message is about: porn, ads or lottery. Only if the message is bulk and was not solicited than you can condemn it as Spam.

When referring to emails, according to the NCES (National Centre for Education Statistic), “Spam refers to electronic junk mail or junk newsgroup postings. Some people define Spam even more generally as any unsolicited e-mail. In addition to being a nuisance, Spam also eats up a lot of network bandwidth. Because the Internet is a public network, little can be done to prevent Spam, just as it is impossible to prevent junk mail. However, the use of software filters in e-mail programs can be used to remove most Spam sent through e-mail.”

Some search engines use the term to describe websites that try to attain a high listing rank by submitting identical or mirror pages. In this article I am going to give you a few tips about email Spam.

If we give a too general definition to the word, we might end up taking for Spam perfectly legitimate emails. Not “any” unsolicited mail is Spam. Spam means unsolicited bulk email.

If a message is unsolicited that doesn’t make it Spam. The same goes for bulk. A message is Spam only if it is both unsolicited and bulk. When you receive an unsolicited job enquiry, you do receive an uncalled-for email. But is that Spam? No. What about a newsletter? That is bulk, but no Spam if you are a subscriber.

Why Do You Get Spam?

Have you posted your email address online in forums, chat rooms, on your website? Than why do you marvel? Spammers gather the addresses from the Internet; so no wonder your own found its way onto a spammer’s list. Besides, spammers use different other means to get what they want: viruses, Trojans, buying from other spammers.

Spam Scams

How many times have you received an “update your account” email from paypal, a bank or ebay? How many times have you received a “warning message”? Maybe it didn’t look suspicious to you as it came from an institution you work with, but was it really that way? This kind of emails is referred to as “phishing scam”. There is not much you can do when this happens. Just don’t click on any links in that email, don’t give away any confidential information such as social security number, bank account or credit card number. There are some free tools that can protect you against known phishing websites. For example download the free EarthLink toolbar and report the scam to the Anti-Phishing Working Group.

What about the emails from different Nigerian (or other nationalities) citizens offering you a percentage of a vast sum of money? Yes, you’ve got that right: scam. You’ll only loose your money on this one. Better don’t be curious. They will ask you to pay a fee in advance – a so called transfer tax, and guess what: some complications will appear, you have to pay more and more and end up with nothing. And don’t believe the “you won money” lottery sweepstakes either. You’ll only spend. The same goes for the Nigerian purchase scam: they want to buy something from you, pay by check and they wish the goods to be sent in Lagos, Nigeria.

A Major Don’t

Don’t reply to spammers… ever! Don’t send any “remove me” message. By doing so you confirm your address is active, you show you read bulk messages, you prove your ISP doesn’t use Spam filters. You are the perfect candidate. You will never be removed. On the contrary…

Spam Fighters

If Spam really bothers you and you want to fight against it, than you have plenty of possibilities. If you are an American, join Cauce at: http://www.cauce.org/. If not… check out Cauce’s international partners (example: EuroCAUCE for Italy, Spain, Germany, Holland, France, Norway).

Associations such as to the Anti-Phishing Working Group, the American Federal Trade Commission (FTC) or other volunteers’ organizations are there to help protecting you against scam or other illegal emails (children pornography for example). Detailed information about Spam, Spammers and ways to fight against them you can find here: http://www.spamhaus.org/.

Author:
Mihaela Lica is a skilled journalist and PR consultant, founder of Pamil Visions – http://www.pamil-visions.com/ Previously she used to work as a military TV redactor for Pro Patria and the Military Media Trust within the Public Relations Directorate of the Romanian Ministry of Defence.

In this article we will give you several tips that can help you in improving your open and click-thru rates.

Open rate

In order to your email campaign be successful the first necessary thing is that people open and read your email newsletter. Online publishing is very similar to traditional publishing. When you buy a daily newspaper, you probably don’t read everything. You don’t have that much of free time and not every subject is equally interesting for you. If you are a sports fan you will read the sport section but you might skip an article about latest movies . In most cases you will decide what you are going to read upon subject titles.

Same thing with email newsletters. One of the two most important factors that influence whether or not your subscriber will open your email newsletter will be your subject line. In order to have good open rates and click-thru rates you have to know your audience. Your message has to be well targeted.

There are several rules you have to follow in order to make effective subject lines.

Subject lines

Your subject lines should be short and snappy to get attention of your subscribers. Many people receive dozens of emails every day and some other people that have web sites and often make posts on different places like web forums, discussion lists, publish articles, can get more than 100 emails per day. So your message will have a very big competition in your subscriber’s inbox. That’s why your subject line has to grab attention of your subscriber. This doesn’t mean that you have to use usual spam techniques. On the contrary. Avoid using words FREE, GUARANTEED, Make Money Fast, Limited Offer and other get-rich-quick schemes words. Not just because of your subscribers. If you use these words it is most likely that your emails will never even reach them. Their ISP will take care of that with their spam filters. Also don’t capitalize every letter and don’t put several times exclamation. You don’t need to shout, people will “hear” you if you know how to “tell” them your message.

So your subject line has to be short and snappy, best thing is that you include one title from your articles in your subject line. It can be some breaking news or exlusive interview. People like to read breaking news or exclusive interviews that can’t be found anywhere else. Also, people often read how-to articles (for example - How To Choose The Right Email Marketing Software) or so called “number” articles (for example – 7 Tips For E-publishers On A Shoestring Budget).

Good thing is that you put your newsletter name in brackets, at the beginning of your subject line in order to be easily recognized from other emails in inbox.

Please bear in mind, that your subject line has to be consistent. What do I mean by that? Of course that you will change the title in your subject line but you have to find the best subject form and stick to it. For example:

[NewslettterName] Your Subject Title, Issue #x, Date

Don’t forget, in order to make effective ads and this apply to subject lines, as well you have to remember 3 words – test, test, test! You have to experiment with different models and find out which work best for you.

From field

Beside Subject line, From field is another info that your recipients will see in their inbox. People have to trust you in order to decide to read your emails. You don’t open your doors to every person who knocks, don’t you?

If you are well-known person, trusted expert in your industry, for example some reputable Internet consultant and you are the only person that is involved in creation and publishing of the newsletter put your name in From field. If several people are involved in that process and if it is a corporate newsletter, use your company name.

Most important thing with From fields is that you don’t experiment with it. Choose one From field and stick to that. It is very un-professional that you often change your From field and beside that, in that case, your open rate will decline.

Useful tip is that you ask your subscribers to make a filter rule for your email newsletter, based on your email address, From field or some part of your Subject line. For example, they can put [YourNewsletterName] in a filter rule for your newsletter or your From field name so every time they get the email newsletter that matches that rule it will be moved to a specially designed folder, for example YourNewsletterName. So this way your newsletter won’t end in their Bulk folder. That is also one of the reasons why you should be consistent with your From field and subject line.

Click-Thru Rates

Clicks come once your email newsletter is opened. With good open rate you have finished only one part of the job. Now, your newsletter has to be well designed with appropriate content and concept, and most important, well targeted in order to have a decent click-thru ratio (CTR). You have to know your audience. You can increase your CTR if you put your most important articles and ads at the top of your email newsletters. Don’t write too long articles. It is better to write articles where you will list several tips. Also, don’t overload your newsletter with ads. People want to read useful things and not lots of ads.

Also, you know that a picture is worth more than 1000 words, so it is good that if you publish a HTML newsletter that you include photos that will be relevant to your articles and that are clickable. Click-Thru rates get higher if you give some value-added services to your subscribers. You have to make a good relationship with them. Treat them well, write useful articles, give exclusive discounts to your subscribers and they will show their appreciation.

Different types of email newsletters have different click-thru ratio. Click-Thru ratio is important, but it is not the most important. Just because many people click on your follow-up article or offer doesn’t mean that they will actually buy your software or service. In some cases, lower CTR can get you more sales than some good CTR. Think about that next time you start your email campaign.

Author:
Dejan Bizinger is a Contributing Editor for Infacta. Infacta is email messaging services company providing powerful, yet easy-to-use award-winning Group Mail, software for sending highly-personalized email messages and Group Metrics, software for email tracking. For more information visit: http://www.infacta.com

This one starts off pretty much like the bad speller - watch seller spam but then goes on to amuse me in a way that few spams can. The subject line promises watches, the first paragraph talks about free medical check ups, then credit from some supposed customer and a paragraph promoting their timely delivery, only to finish off with two paragraphs worth of prescription drugs ranting.

The bad spelling in this spam is probably meant to fool Bayesian filters, just like in the above referenced spam. I hope to find time to write an article about the Bayesian algorithm sometime so all of you can understand why spammers are notorious bad spellers. That article will also explain why random text is inserted into spam. If your interested please bookmark this site and come back.

Subject: Brilliant. Automatic. Lovable. From Cartiers and Bvlgary.

Our licenseed GPs check your case history in timely manner. Don’t forget it is zero costs.

Your services are really convenient. With on time delivery, I got the stuff without any delay. I will refer your site to others who like to cut costs on remeedy. — william Deiters in DC.

Our e-zone cooperates with the most experienced loggistic company to ensure timely shipment.

It is quick and convenient way for you to spend on capsules at our website. Our company provides a wide variety of remeedy at the unsurpassed prices.

Choose these marvelous generrics. And be e a smart shoopper.
http://it.geocities.com/Daniel_se54/?KyV776

—– Original Message —–
From: Marc [mailto:Jean@j.com]
Sent: Tuesday, June 0, 2005 5:35 AM
To: Vernon; Hassan@anft.com; Jon; Brady; Alva
Subject: Re: Reject this chance to lower the expenditure on branded liniments? No way.
Check the most current specials in our website.

as inevitably to defy the suggestions of very opposite feelings.

glittered and sparkled in the sunshine like colored flames, and the

her look and manner declared, that go she would not.

This is quite a typical spam, how someone can fall for this is beyond me. Why should anyone buy a watch from someone who does not even know how to spell? Notice also the last part of this spam, where some totally irrelevant text has been inserted in an attempt to fool anti spam software.

The bad spelling is probably another attempt to fool our anti spam software. The sender probably thinks we have a bayesian filter (which we do) and therefore tries to insert mis-spelled words. This, they think, will offset the bayesian algorithm enough to let the spam pass. That it didn’t could be because our bayesian is quite well trained, or it could be because that technique is failed to begin with. The bayesian fiters of today are smart enough not to be fooled by such simple spoofs.

Notice also the subject line that doesn’t even attempt to fool us. I seriously can’t remember the last time I sent an email with the subject line “tosha”. The big question is, does it mean anything in any language? Spam are so cheap to send that a subject line in a foreign language attracts enough people.

Subject: RE: tosha

They are good savinngs for people.

These wwatches are made of whole stainless steel and they are durable with greater outlook.

We have automatic & winding, battery & quartz, non-winding and mechanic wattches in our cyberrzone.

See our reflective beauties that have logos and serial number. We are artists that make affordable ones look like the classics.

Cartiers are the finest picks for your lover. You will love our lower costs collections.

Equip your high performance life style with shappire crystal surface, stainless steel casing and waterproof feature of our watcch collections.

[URL Removed]

He was to leave Bath at nine this morning, and does not come back

There being nothing to eat, he could only have some play;

remained silent, not even a dewdrop lay like a tear of sympathy on her

Spam with information about worthwhile stocks drop in almost daily in my inbox (example below). I assume that the target of the spammer is to make as many people as possible to buy stocks. The price then rises and the spammer, who bought last week, can sell his stocks with a nice profit.

Safe to say, no stocks that are promoted (unsolicited) in your inbox will ever make you any money. There are stock information newsletters that do provide useful information but they never end up in your inbox by mistake.

[Company and ticker information removed]
Price: $2.30
5-10 Day’s Target: $8-10

Buy: Strong
Expectations: 300-500%

When this Stock moves… WATCH OUT! … This is your chance to get in while it is still low. [Ticker removed] is a high growth issue and should be purchased by stock traders and those that can afford to make quick money on these fast moving issues. This is your chance to get your hands on one of these fast moving stocks and take short term prof1ts. This stock could reach $10.00 in five to ten trading days.

Big watch in play this Tuesday morning!
Put [Ticker removed] on your radar’s now.

Spams like these can cause Bayesian filters to create stop words that almost singel handedly can prevent wanted mails to reach your inbox. This means that when you register for a newsletter you’ll have to examine your junk mail folder and add the sender to your spam filter whitelist.

So I started a list of anti spam software, I’ll add to it whenever I find something that should be on it. If you know of any spam filter that should be on there, please leave a comment to this post.

So this site has moved from my custom coded script to Wordpress. I had some great ideas about what my script should do at some point but now I’ve realised that WP simply does it better and allows me to write more and code less.