Avoid questionable email practices

By Jim Kinkade

Sometimes legitimate email marketers feel they have to use extreme measures to ensure their email messages are delivered and read by the recipients. Unfortunately, many email response techniques have been hijacked by unscrupulous marketers, making it difficult for legitimate marketers to distinguish their email messages from the junk in people's inbox.

Some of the once useful practices that are now common UBE (unsolicited bulk email) techniques include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Claiming high priority – In the early days of email messaging, message priority was introduced. The boss could ensure that everybody read his message because it was"important," and he could indicate that status by flagging it as High Priority. While less common now than it was a few years ago, unscrupulous marketers got a hold of the high priority flag and added it to every single message they sent out, hoping that the hapless recipient would open their "important" email message.

Save high priority tags for truly important one-on-one email messages and leave them out of bulk email campaigns.

• Using false date/time stamps – Inboxes are typically sorted by the message-received date. Unscrupulous marketers have attempted to take advantage of this by setting their date forward in time, so that their message appears at the top or bottom of the list (whichever way the client sorts it). By appearing first (or last) in the list, there is a possibility that the preview pane will catch the message and make an image request, verifying that the email address is real.

Don't be surprised if people ignore or block your message if your message date or time is incorrect.

• Incorporating BCC/CC features – Like all email tools, these were once useful for corporate email communications. After much abuse however, this is another technology that should be used sparingly. Receiving an email that is not addressed to you, and comes from someone you don't know, is disconcerting.

Even the headers in a bcc email do not indicate to whom the original message was intended or why a recipient was included. Bcc UBE often includes email addresses that were once included on a forwarded, carbon copy email message where a several addresses were listed and NOT hidden. Once harvested, those addresses continue to receive more junk.

One way to avoid using the cc email address feature is to shun the Reply To All button on the toolbar. Unless you really mean to Reply To all, and those people are on your list and on everybody else's list too (internal business email).

• Using invalid email addresses – Reply to and from addresses that go nowhere usually indicate UBE. There is no good reason, especially when using permission-based email marketing, to hide your legitimate email address from the recipient. In fact, the whole point of permission marketing using best practices is to engage the recipient in actual conversation that leads to a desired end, either a sale, or whatever your original email goal is.

  All email addresses in your correspondence need to be valid. If they are not, you will be perceived as a questionable sender.

• Forwarding messages – While this is not a UBE practice per se, it is extremely annoying to most recipients, especially when the forwarded message is carbon copied to numerous people in the senders email address book. Many email clients add addresses to which you reply to your address book automatically and if you are not careful, some questionable addresses might be added to yours -- much to your regret.

  If you start forwarding emails to everybody in your list, their email addresses could be picked up by some of the other unsavory people you may have added without realizing. Now your friends will be targets for their spam messages as well.

• Spoofing – This tactic is faking information in the email address or headers. There is no good reason for a legitimate email marketer to fake any portion of an email message, making it appear to be sent from somebody else.

Common sense should be required to open an email account; unfortunately, many people keep the cycle of UBE going through ignorance. Make sure you are doing your part to reduce the questionable, spam-like practices incorporated in the last few years by unscrupulous marketers. – Arial Software

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