A lot of things need to come together to create a great email newsletter, including well written content, attractive formatting and an accurate match of the content to the interests of your target audience. But sometimes even a great newsletter ends up the victim of the subscriber’s Delete button before it even gets opened. Here’s how you can improve the chances of your subscribers actually opening and reading your e-newsletter.

1. Avoid the spam filters: ISPs use rigorous spam protection mechanisms to trap and delete suspect email before it gets into their customer’s inboxes. To make sure your emails don’t get filtered out as spam avoid overdoing ‘come on’ words such as ‘free’, ‘$$$’, ‘save’, ‘discount’, etc. in both the subject line and content of your email. Also, ISPs will blacklist you if you do not remove any invalid email addresses they inform you of.  If that happens, even messages to legitimate addresses may be blocked and that could include things like order confirmations as well as your e-newsletter.

2. Encourage subscribers to whitelist you: Spam filters that come with email clients can create a whitelist of addresses from which mail is always acceptable (safe senders). Subscribers can be coaxed to put in the effort of whitelisting you in a number of ways:

• On your order confirmation page suggest that they whitelist you to ensure they receive order and shipping information
• Run competitions that necessitate them receiving your emails to participate
• Near the suggestion that they whitelist you, provide a link to ‘How to whitelist’ information covering the most popular email clients Read More→