Thursday, Nov 30, 2006

8 Ways To Avoid Becoming The S Word

SPAM - what is it? In Hawaii, it's what one Honolulu reporter described as "the undisputed king of canned luncheon meat." It's is even featured on the menus of the island's McDonald's fast-food restaurants. But to the majority of the world, SPAM is nothing more than a nuisance.

Defined as "unsolicited email, often of a commercial nature, sent indiscriminately to multiple mailing lists, individuals, or newsgroups," SPAM makes up 80 percent of all email. Not surprisingly, SPAM is the reason for more than 16 percent of email address changes.

Josh Young and Jake Berry, program manager and product line manager for Blackbaud, Inc., respectively, offered the following tips to help charities in the fight against SPAM during the recent Blackbaud users conference in Charleston, S.C.:

1. Design. Using a combination of text and HTML produces better results than using one method. Don't use one giant image, and limit text to 300 words. Have a clear call to action, and limit the number of offers to three. Personalize - including a person's first name improves open-rate dramatically
   
   With HTML, there should be no invisible text and Web bugs to track emails - provide a link. No "cute" spellings, no spacing, and no strange characters. Include an "unsubscribe," link to homepage, privacy policy, and organization's street address.

2. Coding. Use high quality HTML, and run through a validator (e.g. W3C.org). Unbalanced and invalid tags will flag an email as SPAM. Make title meaningful -- default titles are often a sign of SPAM.
3. Address Area. No random name in "From" line. A safe bet is the organization name. Limit subject line to 35 characters. Avoid using "$," or "!," and using all caps.
4. Words to avoid. Otherwise innocent words can trigger SPAM filters. Web sites such as Hotmail, Paypal, Amazon and eBay are frequently mentioned in SPAM emails.
5. Targeting message. The more specific, the greater the impact, so try and segment your donor list and target messages. Target timing by prior giving, area donor visited on your site, and e-newsletters to which donor subscribed. Use surveys.
6. Testing. Set up email accounts at multiple ISPs (Yahoo, Gmail, AOL) and send test emails to all. Use SpamAssassin.
7. Clean your list. With an opt-in inclusion in your email, don't pre-check the box, make it easily visible, explain subscription, and link to privacy policy. Remove unsubscribes within three days, to be safe. Remove bouncebacks after three bounces. No duplicate emails.
8. How often and when. When in doubt, limit contacts. Use surveys asking when and how many emails donors want to receive. Use Web analytics to judge your audience habits. Test!

Copyright © 2006The NonProfit Times.