5 Ways to Make Sure Your College's Emails Don't End Up in Spam

Posted by Penn Foster on February 15, 2018


For career and community colleges, email marketing can be a major pillar of your overall acquisition and nurturing strategy. You spend hours writing, designing, and developing your emails. But are they reaching your target prospects? These 5 tips will help to ensure that your emails are not being stopped by spam filters, but are landing in the inbox.

  1. Avoid image-based emails. An email that is all one image or features far more images than it does text is a negative signal for spam filters. Aim for a high text to image area ratio. MailChimp recommends 80% text to 20% images (80:20) as a general rule of thumb.
  2. Avoid sales buzzwords.  Stay away from over-using words and phrases such as 'save big', free, 'buy now', etc. The overuse of these phrases can signal 'SPAM ALERT' to your prospect's email provider. Instead, explain your offer in clear and specific terms. For example, "Enroll in the new XX program today and save XX%."
  3. Send your emails from a real person. The lack of a "from' address or one that seems auto-generated will get the spam-senses of your leads email clients tingling. Your email should always have a from address and it is best if that from address is a real person. Have a real name in the "from' address will give a personal touch to your send and will increase the odds that your audience will open it.
  4. Maintain a high sender reputation. On SenderScore.org you're able to pull a report on how email providers view your IP address. The site bases the report upon factors such as Messages forwarded, Messages replied to, Messages marked as "not spam:", Messages marked as spam (how many of your sent emails are going into spam folders), Messages deleted before reading, among others. Knowing where you stand will help you focus on what needs to be improved.
  5. SUBJECT LINES SHOULD NOT BE IN ALL CAPS.  Don't put your subject line in all capitals. If necessary, add urgency by partially capitalizing your subject line but do so sparingly. Too much capitalizing is a spammy scream for attention.
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