Newsletters Revisited

Of course, we all are sending out regular newsletters to users of our sites, keeping our customers updated on new products and keeping our names and concepts in front of our prospects (what, you’re not? you’re leaving money on the table…)

But maybe it’s time we consider just WHAT we’re sending, and how we’re sending it. Not the content, but the form and format.

If you run a typical site, most of your visitors probably use AOL, MSN, Earthlink or another major provider as their ISP. Each and every one of these now has spam filtering in place for their user’s email, and are competing as to who has the most aggressive spam filter.

These spam filters each have their own set of rules as to what constitutes spam. As a good general plan, you should probably acquire an account (or a buddy with an account) on each of these major services to send test mailings to in order to see if they actually get there.

Common Gotchas:

The use of terms like “unsubscribe”, “opt-in”, “opt-out” (these are important things to have in your newsletter, but you’d better rephrase them)

Blank “To:” fields — if you send out mail to a long list of blind copies with nothing in the To: field (or without that user’s specific address in the too field), you’re liable to get filtered, if not by the service, then by the user’s own mailer rules.

Lots of other little phrases — of course, “Make Money Fast” or “Enlarge Your Anatomical Feature” tend to get zapped real quick, but sometimes stuff will surprise you. Write your newsletter and test.

Outside of spam filters, there are other things that can keep your newsletter from getting read, even if it arrives. Be sure that your “From:” field clearly lets them know that this is coming from someone they know and have a relationship with, and make your subject line both inticing and different from the spam that clogs their mailboxes.

HTML E-mail: I’ve recently acquired mixed feelings about HTML Mail. Being a site builder, of course it looks far more enticing and professional to me, and I’ve tended to lean towards it. However, a recent “connectivity crisis” left me dialed in at 19,200 for a few days instead of using my normal broadband connection, and I got a bit different take on HTML mail as a result. Many of the HTML e-mails (including most of the spam) had huge graphics associated with them. Each time I happened to even preview one of these, it took forever to move on to the next message. Not only did I become disinclined to look at HTML mail, I pretty much got in the mode of deleting it on sight. If you do send out HTML mail, make sure that your graphics are small and fast loading, and remember that the rest of your initial presentation (from, subject line, first few lines of the message in the preview window) make it clear that this is something they want to see, and not just another drain on their connection and their time.