Are your Subject Lines being Seen as Spam?

A lot might depend on what you are putting in the subject line when sending a marketing email.

It may make or break your email marketing campaign. Just reflect on some of those you have received recently. Are you fed up with getting emails such as “Download this software for FREE!!” or “Upgrade for Free” or “RE: [some recent software]” or even “Open this NOW!!”? Do they even reach your Inbox or have they gone straight to the Spam Folder?

Based only on the Subject Line it is difficult, even for an email marketer, to identify which emails are from a legitimate source. So how can we expect our recipients to guess? And when receivers can’t identify them they think that it is spam. They will send the message to Trash, unread. They are likely to report the message as spam or Unsubscribe from your list.

Irrespective of whatever action they might take you’ll start to have delivery problems. One should never take it for granted when you are earning the goodwill of the subscribers. There have been innumerable instances where marketers were mistaken for spammers. Even though this was only a coincidence they still had to deal with heavy fallout. So, this is a word of caution for anyone who is actively involved in email marketing, but in particular to those who regularly send to their list. (As we all should be doing)

A Good or Bad Subject Line

The best guard against mistaken identity is the Subject Line. This means that one must try really hard to be creative, so as to outsmart spammers. The subject line must not only be eye catching but also brief and informative. On top of that it has to provide assurance to the recipients that the email came from a trusted source.

The best thing to do is to be aware and vigilant of the spammers around you. Take a note that spammers usually use the key events to launch their spam emails. This will be, for instance, around product launches, national disasters, holidays and news events. They hope to entice recipients into opening their emails.

Any new launch of Microsoft’s operating system, or even a major update, could be taken as an ideal example. Every spammer tries to take advantage of its release. There is then a flood of spam emails all pretending to be something to do with “Solving” some “Problem” with that launch. That means that a real marketer could inadvertently be seen as a culprit. For instance if any marketer tries to solve a Real Problem, through legitimate means. The email recipients will still think that this email is yet another from the spammers. Next morning the email marketer wakes up to see nothing but a countless number of “Bounced”, “Unsubscribed” and even “Spam complaints”. This has a very bad effect for the ongoing Deliverability of future emails from this particular email marketer.

Losing Reputation and Subscribers

What is the cause of this? It didn’t happen due to incorrect filtering of content. It was due to recipients not being able to differentiate between legitimate email and spam. The email marketer in this case loses both excellent reputation and good subscribers. Thus, one should realize the importance of Good Subject Line and prevent the loss of reputation and clients.

To avoid falling into these traps, keep an eye on alerts as well as reports triggered from anti-virus and anti-spam companies. These are very useful for keeping track of what is currently happening around the internet. There will be reports on spam outbreaks related to some specific events. The good thing about those reports is that they also contain spam emails with subject lines. These help recognise the keywords and phrases that spammers have used. You can then avoid them in your emails.

A Winning Subject Line?

When planning any new email marketing program – check the upcoming events and launches. Just make sure that your subject line does not coincide with any potential “spam fest”. Also check your own Inbox and Spam folders. See what subject lines the spammers are currently using.. Obviously these will be ones to stay well away from in your own emails. It can also be very helpful to include the name of your product, company and or newsletter in the subject bar. This can assure your regular recipients that it has come from a reliable source.

Then there is “Split Testing” – as is always recommended. From this you can see if one Subject Line is performing better than another. It will obviously have more Opens. If it is much better than the other then send that better Subject Line to the Subscribers who did not open the poor one. If it then has a higher open rate you know you have a real Winner. Make a note of that one, it may well be good to use it in the future. You may already know that some experienced Marketers have whole Libraries of excellent Subject Lines. They are so good that they even offer them as bonuses with their own products!

But There’s so Much More …

However, the Subject Line is not the be all and end all. The various providers are now much more sophisticated. Even if you put “suspect” words in the Subject Line it will not necessarily doom you.

Deliverability is now more about Engagement. The providers are looking at whether the list of people you are sending to open your email? Consistent non-opens will show and drag down your “rating”. That is what will start to get you “Spam Boxed” even more than the Subject Line.

Hate to have to say it but those “Subscribers” you have been so desperately holding on to for over a year …
Have they actually Opened any of your emails?

If a large percentage of your list Never Opens your emails then they are no longer “Subscribers”.
They are Dead Weight.

They are dragging your reputation down.
You are “Uninteresting” and your emails are Doomed to the Spam Folders.
Yes, there’s a cure ….
But, that’s a subject for another day.

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