Opt-in ezines are one of the best ways to promote your products and services on the Internet. If you have a legitimate ezine that’s being blocked from your opt-in subscribers, here are some things to try:
1. Try mail it another way. Customize ezines for people whose issues were filtered or try an announcement version, posting the issue on your website.
2. Avoid using the “s” word anywhere in your ezine. Saying, “This is NOT spam” alerts filters. If you must use the ‘s’ word, write it like this – sp^m or sp*m.
3. Don’t use all capital letters for your subject line. Filters are designed to find “hype”. Also avoid using lots of exclamation points!!!!!!!
4. Have your subscribers work with their servers. Even if your list is double opt-in, filters don’t know the difference and some subscribers aren’t aware there are filters on their email.
5. DO use headers/subject lines. Filters block what they consider “malformed email”.
6. Use an ezine mail service that has the “name” option, such as Constant Contact (www.roving.com). 80-90% of spam mail is sent to “subscriber” or “reader” which alerts filters.
7. “Excessive” mailing will get you blocked … whatever that is.
8. Quit using the word “Viagra”.
I can do that, but how can I avoid using “Resilience,” when it’s the name of one of my ebooks and Joanne in the UK’s filter blocked it last week? I changed the title in the attachment header, but the content is also filtered. Ultimately I sent it to her friend’s email.
According to the editor of TidBITS, these words kept their ezine from being delivered recently: “Viagra,” “my,” “X10,” “Napster,” and “pictures.” Using the word “Viagra” caused 4,000 TidBITS issues to be rejected by over 1,000 sites. Find the offending word and choose something else.
Susan Dunn, MA, Marketing Coach,
http://www.webstrategies.cc. Marketing consultation,
implementation, website review, SEO optimization, article
writing and submission, help with ebooks and other
strategies. Susan is the author or How to Write an eBook
and Market It on the Internet. Mailto:sdunn@susandunn.cc
for information and free ezine. Specify Checklist.
