Even Asked For E-mail is Junk

This past Monday, I typed again about how formatting can cause your e-mails to not make it to the other side. Today, I just read some stats from a study about just that. Here are some of the highlights:

The top three most frequently triggered “red flags” were emails containing images with little to no text, a “from” name that isn’t real and messages that are 60 percent or more HTML. E-mails that have more formatting than messaging will cause you problems.
Several of the triggers stem from poor HTML coding and design, and can be easily corrected to improve inbox delivery. This is why using Outlook to send format and create the HTML is not the right course of action. Instead, use who I use to send formatted e-mails that will get through because they take all these issues into consideration.
These are messages that have been invited by the recipients, and yet… still aren’t making it to the inbox… much of the ISP’s delivery decisions are based on a sender’s reputation… (Were you ever reported for spamming?) governed primarily by how often recipients click the ‘Report as Spam’ button for its messages. Folks forget what they sub to all the time and erroneously report e-mails that have no value as spam. That is why it is so important to get permission to e-mail first! The combo of red flags and possible spam reports further hinders your e-mail getting through.
The U.S. ISPs most likely to relegate invited email to the junk mail folder include XO Concentric (62 percent of its total delivered permission-based messages were sent to the junk mail folder) and SBC Global (23 percent of its messages). MSN Network, Hotmail and Yahoo all hover around 21 percent. AOL is closer to the other end – with just 1.2 percent of its delivered email landing in the junk mail folder.

This trend is going to continue and increase as ISPs lockdown their networks from resource hogging unasked for e-mail. The key is to ensure that your e-mails do not get misidentified as one of the bad guys. And the main way to accomplish that task is to rely on plain text for your day-to-day communications and use services that specialize in creating formatted e-mails for your marketing messages.

To review the article and download the PDF report:

Sender’s Reputation Relegates 1-in-4 Invited E-Mails to Junk Folder