We all know that communicating with your customers is important and in today’s digital world emailing is often a great option. However, there are some thing to watch out for, like making sure your communications are not labelled as spam. If you fall in to the spam trap there is a good chance that your customers never receive your email, because it can be blocked by their service or yours, and you may be banned by your own mail provider from sending emails for a period of time. Before you press send, check out these 3 tips to keep you from being labelled as a spammer.

1. Avoid sending to email addresses that you do not know are valid. Emails from bulk lists can be old and outdated or completely incorrect. Today’s software is smarter than you’d think and can flag you as a spammer if you aren’t sending to verified email addresses. So, for the absolute best results, make sure that you are the one collecting your emails, and are communicating often with them to maintain quality.

2. Avoid using certain characters and language in your subject lines. Words like FREE and exclamation points often increase your chances of being flagged. Even using words like OFFER or SPECIAL…and using CAPS are red flags. Remember those checking whether you are a spammer aren’t people, they’re computers and they don’t care if you “didn’t mean it.” For more tips on subject lines, check out our post Successful Email Marketing Secrets: Part 2.

3. Avoid sending to a lot of people in one email or bulk emailing. When you’re at a party everyone doesn’t just stand on a chairs and yell at everyone else; you speak to people one-on-one, or in a group conversation with specific topics. Email is like that too. Separate out lists into smaller groups or “segments”  so that each batch will have a manageable amount of emails in it, and you can tailor your communication to each. Fifty or less is a good baseline, but each individual mail system can provide a more accurate guideline. A side note, if you are using a system like Outlook or Gmail (versus MailChimp or Constant Contact), be sure to add the contacts you are trying to send to in the BCC box, rather than To or CC. However, with the proliferation of free or really inexpensive systems, we don’t recommend using your personal email at all for emailing bulk lists.

Now that you have the basics of sending a spam-free email down, send away! If you still feel stumped and need to see an example of a great email IRL, subscribe to our receive our newsletter email here.