Do These Spam Emails Look Familiar?
Posted by Dave McCue on September 30th, 2009
If you take pride in your email marketing, you wouldn’t think your messages would contain elements found in some of the most Spam-tastic emails out there, right? Well, you might be surprised. To illustrate, I’ll be using a collection of the SPAM-iest emails I’ve received lately. If these characteristics sound familiar, it’d be a good idea to make some changes to your messages—the less you have in common with these bottom-feeders the better.
What’s the problem: (click to enlarge the sample message
The absence of a “To” address or any type of personalization leads me to believe that I did not actually win $2.5M dollars from Asia Power Ball Online Lottery Promo. This is also commonly found in emails sent by organizations who do all of their email marketing in-house, and often enter an entire mailing list of addresses entered into the “Bcc” field. The risk of accidentally using the “Cc” field instead of “Bcc” field is one possibly embarrassing reason to avoid this practice. Another is that seeing a blank “To” field can make recipients immediately suspicious as to the validity of your message, regardless of how legitimate you may think it is.
Using generic subject lines is another bad practice. You may not have content as enticing as a multi-million dollar prize, but it’s your responsibility to make it as enticing and informative as possible. And take care to avoid too much fine print or legal copy at the bottom of your messages—it can give recipients the impression that things aren’t what they appear, or that some “catch” is involved. If extensive Terms & Conditions apply, list them on a web page and link to it the way you would your Privacy Policy.
What’s the problem: (click to enlarge the sample message)
I apologize if this email says something dirty, but I wouldn’t know because I don’t speak French!!!!!!! As unintelligible as this message was for me, errors in your message code can cause display issues that are just as troublesome for your recipients. Testing in your favorite email client isn’t enough—some issues will have no effect in certain mail clients while wreaking havoc in others. Make sure your messages are coming through loud and clear…well, maybe not loud (the 26 exclamation points in this message’s subject line were a bit much). You should also never try to include an attachment with an email marketing message because it will trigger Spam filters, and don’t try to send messages on behalf of Bill Gates, you might not be this lucky.
What’s the problem: (click to enlarge the sample message)
Default greetings are sometimes unavoidable if a recipient’s name was not provided during opt-in, but using a phrase like “Dear Friend” in such greetings actually does more harm than good. Try to avoid “impersonal personalization.” In addition, it’s always better to let recipients reply directly to your “From” address if they want to open a line of communication, rather than requiring them to use a different address. Their instinct is to use the Reply button, and it can be insulting to receive an automated response telling them your organization refuses to read their message unless they play by your rules.
What’s the problem: (click to enlarge the sample message)
This email reflects most of the bad practices noted above, but it also commits the email sin of withholding information from the recipient. Mr. Tan Wong, if that is your real name, why would you leave me hanging like this? Don’t treat your subscribers the same way; they’ve taken the time out of their day to view your message, give them the information they’re expecting. Linking to a landing page with more information is fine, but you never want to use the “cliffhanger” approach in your emails.
While all of the examples here are obviously not legitimate messages, I’ve seen the bad practices mentioned here on messages from legitimate senders as well. Avoid these things in your messages to maintain a positive relationship with your audience—because take it from me, winning the trust of your subscribers is far more lucrative than winning the UK Lottery (again).
