You certainly do not want your email to be misidentified as spam and got deleted by the email server or by your friends.  A simple hint is to do what spammers don't or can't do.

Here are some useful suggestions:

• Always enter a brief and specific subject line - Some email users will delete everything that does not have a subject line.  Then the next round of killing will fall onto the obvious ones (like drugs and finance), followed by subjects that are too general, too short or too try-hard.  Remember, enter a subject line that is relevant and sound like you.
• Do not use "spamish" words - "rolex watch", "viagra", "special discount" etc.  If you do need to talk about them, use those words sparingly and do not include many "spamish" topics in one email.  That will increase your email's "spam score" pass the threshold to be identified as spam.
• Do not claim that your email is not spam - Only spam claims that they are not spam.  Even anti-spam software would not insert text into the message to claim that the email has been checked and is spam free (the spam-free signature is in the header which is invisible to the recipients).
• Do not use unusual spelling or special language constructs like separating letters with spaces etc.  They look very much like spam and may fit into some profile of Spam Assassin.
• Do not include invisible elements like script that tracks reading and pops up nice animations etc.
• Do not simply forward a junk email to your provider - If you want to tell your provider about a junk email and forwarding it unchanged, it is very likely that the message will go straight to your provider's bin.  As you can imagine, public email addresses (like your provider's support address) attract huge amount of junk email and therefore must be highly guarded.  If your forwarded email bears a junk email subject, there is little chance that it will see the light of day.  When you really want to forward a junk email to your provider, please state specifically in the subject line that you want the provider to examine such email for potential blocking.

Back