Anyone with an email address knows what spam is, and if you’re like me you absolutely despise it.  So as an email marketer, why would you want to risk associating your agency brand with that of a spammer?  Given the facts, I’m sure the majority of you wouldn’t.  Consider the following checklist to determine if you are following the rules.

The Permission Marketer’s Check List

• Do you have the recipient’s permission? – Before you send someone an email you need the person’s consent.  How do you get permission? If the recipient is a current client, ask the next time you talk to them. For prospects, request their permission to follow up via email before you leave your meeting.

  Rented or purchased lists are a no-no. The list seller will likely say you are buying an opt-in list.  But what did they opt-in for?  I’m going to go out on a limb, and say likely not insurance topics.

• Are you mailing too often? – This is a tough one for insurance agents. It’s not like you’re sending out a weekly flyer announcing various items on sale.   Since there’s no hard and fast rules, you need to use your best judgment.  Are your messages important enough, that people need to hear from you weekly?  If not, you should probably stick with mailing no more often than monthly.
• Is your content consistent with what the recipient signed up for? – If your subscribers signed up for a commercial lines p/c newsletter they’re likely not interested in articles on homeowner’s insurance.  If you do wish to cross promote to a different list, just send out an opt-in email requesting permission.
• Can the recipient easily unsubscribe? – Having an easy unsubscribe process is not just to prevent people from reporting your messages as spam, it’s a requirement.

Any agent with insurance email marketing experience knows all about spam filters. You can follow all the rules and still find some of your emails lost in cyberspace. Even with a permission-based mailing list, you’ll still encounter emails getting trapped in spam filters.

Unfortunately, there is no easy fix to stay clear of spam filters. Understanding how they identify spam, however, can help you minimize their effect to your email newsletter campaigns.

To ensure maximum delivery of your email newsletters, avoid these common mistakes:

· Usage of obvious spammy phrases, like “Money back guarantee” or “100% Free”

· Excessive use of exclamation points!!!!!!

· USING ALL CAPS, especially in your subject line

· Multiple font colors, or large fonts, where unnecessary

· Messy non-compliant HTML code

· Mail is nothing but one large image

While certainly content is key in determining whether an email is marked as spam, we also take preventive steps on our end to maximize delivery for our agent clients. As an established email marketing service, Foresight Publishing has been accepted into feedback loops with ISPs like AOL, Hotmail, Comcast, Yahoo and others. Whenever an email recipient from one of these ISPs reports an email as spam, we’ll alert you right away so you know someone blocked your message. Additionally, we also automatically remove these subscribers from your mailing list(s).

Avoiding spam filters when sending out legitimate emails can take considerable effort on your part. However, watching your open rate grow by just a few percentage points could do wonders for your email marketing.