What I'm about to show you will increase
the number of people that read your
email significantly. (I'm talking about
legitimate opt-in or one-to-one emails
here, not spam.)

Many email clients will allow you to
filter out "junk" based on a set of
rules. For example, anything that
starts with "ADV:" or includes such text
as "this email is sent in compliance
with..." can be filtered out and sent
directly to your trash file.

If you're like me and get tons of email
every day, this can be quite useful. I
just don't have time to read about every
time some South American pharmacy is
running a special on Viagra.

The problem is that these rules are not
always accurate. That is, sometimes
these "junk email" rules filter out
important email as well.

Surprisingly, these rules are not very
forgiving at times. If I were to write
such rules I would do so under the
assumption that it is better to let some
spam slip through than to erroneously
filter out something important. But,
we're not so lucky. Many of the junk
filtering rules are valid, but others
are not.

You should comb through any of the
automated follow up emails or
newsletters you send out and remove
anything that might trigger a spam
filter. Since some of these rules are
quite arcane, it is probably best to
send the email to yourself and receive
it with a client that has junk-filtering
rules turned on. I've found that the
Outlook junk filtering rules are the
harshest, so you might try that. If the
email is not filtered, you're probably
OK. If it is, play with it until the
email is accepted.

Here are some things to look for that
you may not expect. The following will
trigger junk email filters in Outlook
and keep your email from being read:

"FREE"
When in ALL CAPS anywhere in your email.
You shouldn't use ALL CAPS for anything
anyway, though, if you can avoid it.


"sales@anydomain"
If this is in the from address. Believe
it or not!


"extra income"
When found anywhere in the message.

"for free?" or "for free!"
When found anywhere in the message.
This one is really silly. I can think
of quite a few uses for this phrase
outside of junk email...

Of course, there are quite a few other
rules that will trigger junk email
filters, but these are ones that could
easily trip you up. Just remember to
test the mail yourself to make sure.
Doing this will significantly increase
the number of people that actually read
the mail you send them.

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Article by Mark Joyner