Tips for Keeping Your Emails Out of the Spam Folder

Updated: Jun. 22, 2022  

You've spent time carefully crafting a valuable email to send to your organization, so the last thing you want it to do is to go directly to their spam folder. The good news is there are some guidelines you can follow to decrease the odds that your email or newsletter is marked as junk mail.

Let's look at some things that could potentially trigger your email to be labeled as spam.

Subject Line

• Don’t put your email subject in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS. Commonly viewed around the internet as shouting, an abundance of caps is sure to trigger a spam filter. 

• Avoid the words “free” or the recipient’s name in the subject line as well. But don’t let these rules scare you in to leaving the subject line totally blank – that’s a spam trigger as well.

Email Body

• Similar to the subject line, using terms like "free" or "guaranteed" within the email body are flags for spam filters. Don't think you're being tricky by trying to disguise words using characters (such as f*ree) - spam filters have long since caught on to that tactic.

• Balance text and images. Sharing images of events and members is a great way to make your newsletter more visually pleasing, but too many images are another spam flag. A good rule of thumb is to have at least two lines of text per image.

Settings

• Provide both text and HTML versions of your newsletter. In addition to helping you pass the spam filter, this is good practice in case the recipient is unable to read HTML email.

• Avoid attaching a large file in a format other than PDF or image (JPG, GIF, and PNG). If you have a big file to share with everyone, consider hosting it on your server and providing a link for the recipients to download the file.

Newsletters and emails to your members and prospective members are great ways to keep them informed about your association. By following these guidelines, your messages are more likely to end up in their Inbox. 

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