This is the second in a 3-part series on how to get your emails through the spam filter, so they land in your subscribers’ inboxes. Last week was all about the technical aspects of making your emails spam filter friendly. This week we talk about good content practices to deal with email spam filters.

In the same way that search engines judge your content for keyword relevance, internet service providers (ISP) employ email spam filters to look for email content that looks “spammy.”

Your email messages are already relevant to your subscribers. (They are, right? Otherwise, they shouldn’t be your subscribers.) But there are still ways your emails can inadvertently end up getting caught and shoved into the junk mailbox, never to be seen again.

Today, we’ll talk about 5 content best practices you should use when writing emails. Honestly, these are good practices regardless of whether you’re fighting with spam filters, but they’ll also help your email land in your subscribers’ inboxes.

Why Does Content Matter When It Comes to Email Spam Filters?

First, content always matters.

You should never send emails that aren’t relevant to your audience.

It’s rude, it’s a betrayal of the agreement between you and your subscribers and nobody wants that stuff cluttering up their inboxes.

That last part is pretty much how ISPs feel about bad content, which is why they employ spam filters.

The point of an email spam filter is to look for the “junk mail” content and stop it from landing in your inbox.

Does it always work?

No.

Just yesterday I probably deleted 30 junk emails about everything from coronavirus to male enhancement.

However, it works a lot better than if you didn’t have a spam filter. You’d probably have such an onslaught of junk emails, you’d have a hard time finding the emails you actually want to receive.

Email spam filters also look for blacklisted email addresses and domains, as well as unusual traffic paths in email headers. If an email made an unusual stop somewhere along its route, it could be infected with a virus or malware.

ISPs want to keep your inbox safe for two reasons.

1. It keeps you happy, which means you’ll keep paying
   for (or using) their service.
2. It prevents hackers from damaging their systems
   or using their systems to attack others.

You can see the problem here. ISPs are doing everything they can to protect their customers from malicious attacks and being overrun with junk mail. You just want to be able to communicate with your audience.

The simple way to deal with the problem is to make your emails spam filter friendly.

Here’s how…

1.  Avoid Using Spam Filter Trigger Words in Your Content

Certain words and phrases are considered more “spammy” than others.

• Amazing
• Congratulations
• Free
• Increase sales
• Get hard
• Buy now
• Dear friend
• Special offer
• Guarantee
• Risk-free
• Home-based business
• Discount
• Chance
• Miracle
• Wife
• Never
• This is not spam

These are only a few of the words you should avoid in your emails. If you’d like an exhaustive list, check out HubSpot’s collection.

Looking at this list, there are words you won’t be able to avoid.

For example, if you include a guarantee for your product, you want to mention that in your emails. If you’re offering a discount, you need to make that clear. And you do want to encourage people to buy now.

You’ll notice the word, “free” is on this list.

I use “free” all the time in my Thursday emails when I offer a free consultation. Yet my emails get through to my subscribers’ inboxes. (BTW, “free consultation” is also a no-no word according to HubSpot’s list.)

A lot of this has to do with context.

If your email sounds like a late-night infomercial, making all sorts of crazy claims and guarantees, it’s more likely to get caught in a spam filter.

If your message is clear, concise and is relevant to your audience, it’s less likely to get caught in an email spam filter.

I know that sounds incredibly subjective. And it is. But if you follow good messaging practices, like answering your subscribers’ #1 question, “What’s In It For Me” and showing empathy with their situation, you’ll hit the mark more often than not. To learn more about good messaging practices, check out this blog post.

Meanwhile, steer clear of as many of these “spammy” words as you can. Don’t obsess about it but do be conscious of it as you write

2.   Don’t Use Misleading Subject Lines

I know what you’re thinking. “But how do I attract my subscribers’ attention if I can’t write cool subject lines?”

Write cool subject lines! Please, liven up our inboxes with fun, entertaining subject lines. We all need more of that.

But don’t be deceptive.

I’m sure you’ve seen subject lines like:

• Re: Your recent order (from a company you’ve
  never heard of, much less ordered from).
• Urgent – Update your information! (From a
  company that shouldn’t have your information.)
• Re: Currently In Office (from someone you
  don’t know and have never emailed).

You see what I mean, right?

Don’t make your subject line seem like it’s trying to trick your subscribers into opening the email.

You can still attract attention with your subject lines. Just a couple weeks ago, I sent the subject line “My life on stage with a tiger” to announce my new blog post about using your past experience to run your current business. Well, I used to stand on stage with a tiger. There’s even a picture in the email. (It’s also in the blog post if you’re curious.)

The subject line definitely attracted attention. But there was nothing deceptive about it. The first sentence explained that I used stand on stage with a lot of different wild cats. The rest of the email talked about how our life experiences are valuable to our current situations.

All relevant content, with an interesting and relevant subject line.

Be your wonderful, witty self while making sure your subject line is attracting your subscribers’ attention for the right reasons, not the wrong ones.

Speaking of which…

3.   Send Content That is Relevant to Your Subscribers

I mentioned this earlier in this post. I’m going to drive my point home here.

If you are a professional hairstylist, it’s totally understandable that you might send emails promoting hair products and styling tools.

It would not make sense to send emails promoting automotive products.

This should be obvious. Your subscribers joined your email list because they’re interested in what you have to offer. Don’t confuse them by offering something totally off the wall that isn’t relevant to them.

I will admit to going on a tangent in my emails every once in a while, but I always bring the story back around to emails, marketing and small businesses somehow. That keeps my emails relevant to my audience, small business owners who are growing their email lists and building a relationship with their customers through email.

You need to do the same for your audience, whether you’re promoting products or sending informational content. Always, always bring it back to the reason people signed up for your email list.

“But what about affiliate offers?” I hear you cry.

Your affiliate offers should be relevant to your audience too.

To extend the example above, I could totally see a hairstylist doing an affiliate promotion for a new automotive shop, run by women, where customers can get their nails done while they wait. (Yes, these exist, and I think it’s a fantastic idea!)

That would be relevant content for a hair stylist’s audience. Get my car’s oil changed and get a manicure in the same appointment? I’m all over it!

That same hairstylist shouldn’t offer an affiliate promotion for an engine hoist. There is no connection for the audience to this product. If I opened that email, I’d wonder if my stylist’s email account had been hacked. I’d certainly report the email as spam.

The more people who report your email as spam, the more the ISPs will take notice. Your email address can be blacklisted and if that happens, your deliverability will plummet like a stone.

Do yourself and your subscribers a huge favor. Send them content that is relevant to them. They’ll open and read that content. You’ll build a better relationship with them and get more sales. Everyone will be a lot happier for it.

4.   Use Good HTML Design Practices for Your Email Template

Yeah, on top of needing quality content, your email needs to look good to get past the spam filters.

If you send text-only emails, this shouldn’t be a problem for you.

If you have an email template or if you like to include images in your emails, you need to pay attention to good design practices like:

• Make your email template a maximum of 600-800 pixels wide. This is a good display width for most email clients.
  
  
• Don’t send emails that are mostly or entirely images with little or no text. If you do use images, limit it to one or two. If you’re promoting multiple products, send one or two pictures of the products and link to a catalog page on your website.
  
  
• Keep your HTML code clean and simple. If you’re using a template from a reputable email service provider (ESP) like Drip or Mailerlite, you’re probably fine. If you’re coding your own template in an ESP, don’t let it get out of hand.
  
  
• Compress your images so they load quickly.
  
  
• Don’t fill your email with links. 2-3 is acceptable, more than that looks spammy. If you have a lot of resources you want to share, consider making a landing page just for those resources and linking to that page in your email. Better for your subscribers, as they will get your email, better for you as you might get some good SEO link juice off that page.
  
  
• Never send a file attached to your email. This is particularly important for lead magnet delivery. Spam filters will strip them out or not deliver your email at all. Instead, add a link to the file your subscribers can download it.
  
  
• Don’t use obscure fonts. Stick with the standard web-based fonts like Arial, Times, Veranda, etc. Most ESPs include fonts that are email spam filter friendly in their templates and builders.

• Optimize for mobile. Make sure your emails load
  quickly on mobile devices and that it’s easy to click on links in your emails
  with a finger or thumb.

My emails are typically a header with my logo, the greeting and body of my email, and a picture at the bottom. Very simple, yet attractive and engaging. It’s easy to do and my emails get through the spam filters.

See, told you there was a tiger.

5.   Increase Your Open Rate

ISPs are more likely to let your emails through if your subscribers are opening your emails. They’ll see the pattern and say, “Hey, this customer wants to hear from this person. Let ‘em through.”

As silly as that may sound, it’s true. A better open rate means better deliverability.

How do you manage that?

Email your subscribers regularly with relevant content that they look forward to reading. You know, all the stuff that I always go on about in these blog posts.

By training your subscribers to look forward to and open your emails, you’re also training their ISPs to let your emails through the spam filters and into your subscribers’ inboxes.

Give your subscribers what they want, more of what you have to offer. Check out this blog post if you’re worried about how to keep up a regular email cadence.

Make Your Email Content Spam Filter Friendly

You’ve got a much better idea of what you can do to make your emails spam filter friendly. Now it’s time to make it happen.

Download the Content Best Practices Checklist now so you can give all of your emails the best chance of landing in your subscribers’ inbox

Next week, I’ll show you how to avoid the dreaded “Promotions” tab in Gmail.