Why your Eflyers Might land in the Spam Folder
Email marketing provides real estate agents with an affordable way to reach a large group of buyer’s agents. However, if
you are not careful, your own email practices could be the reason your open rates seem low. It is a common mistake to assume that if your open rates are low that it must be someone else’s fault. The fault usually lies in two common mistakes: 1) Using a stale mailing list or 2) Using email practices that land eflyers in the spam folder.
Spam Filtering
Internet Service Providers (ISP’s), have become exceptionally good at helping their clients avoid having spam or malicious emails appear in their inboxes. Unfortunately in hand with these precautions, many have become overly zealous in their efforts, using anti-spam programs that can weed out even the most innocent of emails.
This might seem like the cards are stacked against you as an email marketer. However, take heart in knowing that if you are using a legitimate email marketing service and following the best practices of knowledgeable email marketers, that your odds of seeing success in your email marketing campaigns get much better.
Understanding spam filters can help improve your open rates.
Tips to avoid Spam Filtering
Here are some tips to help you avoid undeserved spam filtering:
As excited as you are about the property you are selling, tons of exclamation points are not going to persuade agents to open your email. In fact, excessive exclamation marks, using caps and exaggerated subject lines are major triggers to spam filters that your email is not legit.
Examples of exaggerated subject lines include phrases such as “Once in a lifetime opportunity!” or “Don’t Miss Out!” Real estate agents want the facts about the property, not a sensationalized offer. Avoiding these tactics will let spam filters know you are trustworthy.
Within the body of the copy make sure you are not using exaggerated points. Avoid using words highlighted in caps, and as mentioned above too many exclamation points as this will set off alarms.
If you have the option to use your own artwork as one big image, or using a template that allows you to add text, use the template. Spam filters look for emails that are one big image with little or no text and will often filter them out simply because they can’t read the image.
If you are using your own list be careful that you have permission from each recipient to send them information. Old lists can also be a problem as the more bounces you get from old or invalid email addresses at a single ISP the more chance there is that the ISP will block anything coming from you.
If you want to send a proof to your client, broker or fellow agents do not use the word test in the subject line as this can also trigger issues with spam filters.
White Listing
An important thing to keep in mind is that even your own company’s firewall might view any of the above issues as spam. This means that you will not receive a copy of your email or even confirmation emails that your eflyer has been sent. In order to ensure that you are not blocked by your own ISP make sure that your email marketing service provider’s email address is “white listed”. You can do this by simply adding their email addresses to your address or contact list so that it is always accepted by your ISP.
Realtour adheres to all anti-spam rules to ensure your emails get through. Our list is checked regularly. We provide an unsubscribe option in order to keep our list up to date with subscribers who have chosen to receive emails coming from our IP address. Using our real estate email marketing service in hand with these tips will help ensure your eflyers reach as many agents as possible.
