“Why is my Spam Meter Score so high? I haven’t sent out an email campaign in a while but I’m still receiving spam complaints.”

Well aside from the obvious question of:

• Are you sending unsolicited emails to scraped or bought lists?

There may be a couple hidden reasons why you’ve recently received a spike in your Spam complaints.

Email inboxes are like personal digital archives. I know personally I have emails from 10 years ago still sitting in my inbox just in case I need to reference them at some point in my life.

As digital marketers we sometimes forget how readers of our newsletters or email campaigns use their inboxes. People are busy and forgetful. And sometimes this negatively effects how our email marketing campaigns are received.

Clicking “This Is Spam” Is Easy

I heard a story the other day about a colleagues Aunt who uses the “This is Spam” function all the time to filter her inbox. She signs up for a ton of newsletters to get news, special offers and discount codes sent to her.

• Sometimes she forgets that she ever signed up to a particular newsletter. Then wonders why she has a hundred messages in her inbox from them. To clear the clutter she organizes her inbox view to show her messages by sender then clicks “This is Spam” to get rid of the messages that she no longer wants to receive. (This in turn lodges 100’s of spam complaints against the senders effectively trashing their sender scores)

• Sometimes, if she can’t find the unsubscribe link in a matter of seconds she uses the “This is Spam” button to unsubscribe

• And sometimes, when she has to re-enter or confirm her email address to unsubscribe from a newsletter she clicks the “This is Spam” button as well.

It’s a frustrating story for digital marketers to hear but it's true - and baffling. But my friends Aunt is a prime example of how people are managing their inboxes nowadays. This is a true-to-life real world, day-to-day situation (however unbelievable) of average users interacting with newsletters that they’ve subscribed to.

So as a email marketer what can you do?

How can you minimize the chances that your message will be marked as spam?

Simple Tips to Keep Your Spam Scores Low
• Only send to Double Opt-In lists
• Identify your business clearly as the sender of the messages
• Send your campaigns frequently to stay “top-of-mind” with your readers
• Send valuable content that people want to read
• Make it easy for people to unsubscribe from your newsletter in one click
• Place a “You’re receiving this email because you signed up to receive news and special offers at http://mybizmailer.com” type of reminder in the footer of your messages.

Even with the above mentioned 6 quick tips people are still going to mark your messages as spam. It’s frustrating but it’s true. All you can do is try your best to be of service to the people on your list as best you can and keep your fingers crossed that my friends aunt isn’t on your mailing list.

Wishing you high open and click through rates.

The MyBizMailer Team