B2B Online Marketing Blog

As of Spring 2009, the #1 issue facing e-mail marketers across the industry was and still is delivery. SPAM or junk filter optimization of HTML and text e-mail creative is key for improving delivery rates. Also using list managers, vendors or working with  publishers who have servers that are white-listed with all major ISPs (such as gmail, msn, hotmail, yahoo etc). For consumer and business lists, open rates back in early 2000 were in the 50% to 60% range. Now, even targeted B2B e-mail lists can have open rates in the 10% to 25% range. This means that optimizing your HTML and text e-mail creative is key to ensure server and local level filtering does not block your permission based messaging.

Here are 3 proven techniques to improve email delivery rates;

1. Keep your subject lines short and benefit oriented (the US Law requires that subject lines are “non-deceptive” and free of problem keywords). Do not include adjectives or adverbs which are too sales oriented. Words such as “free” or “save” or “discount” will often get blocked/filtered as a false-positive. The US Law requires that you display your legal company name as the FROM label (vs a personal name), and this also helps improve your open rate.

Poor subject: “Download our free comprehensive white paper on low cost SAFE and *SECURE* online storage solutions for your business!”

Issues;
- way too long at 117 characters including spaces – should be not more than 75 characters to avoid getting cut off in e-mail programs
- “free” and even “cost” are SPAM trigger words that may cause filtering
- “comprehensive”, “safe” and “secure” are adjectives that are too sales oriented, and not benefit oriented
- ALL CAPS and using extra characters and punctuation such as “*” and “!” will increase the likelihood of SPAM filtering

Good subject: “Complimentary white paper on storage solutions”

HOT TIP: Shorter subjects get higher responses.  Keep subjects under 75 characters – which prevents them from being cut off in the majority of e-mail applications such as Outlook. Subjects as short as 15 to 25 characters work best on mobile devices such as the Blackberry and iPhone.

2. Use e-mail filter prediction software such as SPAMAssassin.org open source e-mail filter software to give your HTML e-mail a SPAM rating score of 0 to 5 – with 5 being most likely to be caught in filters. This software offers specific coding tips and modifications to allow you to lower your SPAM rating. Many hosted e-mail marketing solutions such as Savicom.net (I use this service) come loaded with SPAM Assassin software to use to test your HTML e-mails.

HOT TIP: On average, 80% of people use “Preview Panes” in their e-mail application, so include your main offer copy and call to action in the top 2 inches of each message. Be sure to add descriptive text to the “Alt” tags on each image for those whose e-mail programs disable images as the default setting.

3. Optimize HTML e-mail code by keeping image size to a minimum (less than 50Kb, preferably 25Kb), and maximizing visible HTML text. Too many large images that contain non-coded text will raise a red flag to e-mail filters. Be sure to add descriptive “ALT Tag” text to each image you do use in case images are blocked. Test text only e-mails when sending to vertical markets who have savvy IT recipients – e.g. I always recommend sending text only e-mails to CIOs or CTOs.

HOT TIP: Optimizing your HTML e-mail content with short subject lines, few images and over 100 words of visible text in the HTML email will greatly help prevent false positive SPAM filtering. Ignoring this can reduce your response rates by up to 50% or more.