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 10 rules of sending email from your business
Having a popular website means I get lots of spam. I get some other odd messages too - which can easily be mistaken as spam. They are from businesses, usually small businesses, and their attempts to use email to promote their businesses is working against them. Here are 10 basic rules for all businesses that send email.
- Use your domain name. A lot of small businesses have a website with their own domain but seem unaware that email addresses are almost always part of their hosting deal. Not only does using your domain name seem more professional, you don't have to change your email address if you change suppliers. Using free email accounts is not a professional look.
- Set up an appropriate name in you Sender/from address. Make sure it makes sense - the company name, sales at companyname. I often see emails from Office, Sales, Home, etc which give no indication who the email is from until (or unless) I open it.
- Set up an email signature. This can contact your contact details, website address, single tag line in a concise format that save you typing such information and removes the likelihood of error - unless you change your details and forget to update your signature.
- Make sure the reply address is correct. This is in your email settings and is the address that comes up when the recipient clicks on reply. It can be different to your sender address.
- Send yourself emails to check all these things - especially when you've changed computers or had to set up your email programs, or change your settings for any reason. Don't assume the technical people will just know what to do.
- Think about using generic email address eg sales@ and accounts@ rather than staff names. That will mean that the email addresses don't change when staff leave or change roles. It also looks better from the outside and makes email easier to manage on the inside. Use your own name if it is important to readers that the email is from you.
- Put some thought into your subject line. Your recipient will decide whether to open your email immediately, tomorrow or never depending on the combination of the subject and the sender name.
- Avoid setting off the spam filters. The list of words used to trigger spam filters keeps growing but there are some obvious words that almost gaurantee your email gets flagged, filtered or dumped as spam. Words like free, win, viagra, sex, adult, UPPER CASE, swearing and anotomical words are obvious. Others like home business, money, prize, even valentine may get through in the body of an email but not in the subject line. If you get spam, take note of the misspelt words (pron instead of porn) and words with numbers substituted for letters as they are all attempts to fool the spam filters.
- Keep your email concise and to the point. Don't expect your reader to spend time working out what your email is about.
- Finally, make sure that you, and all staff who can send email from your company, understand and comply with the spam laws.
by Gayle Dallaston February 4, 2008 8:55 AM
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