Email Etiquette

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Will your Email Get Opened? Subject Fields Matter!

In today's environment we all get too many emails that we prefer to not receive. Many are spam, while others are from people who have found us that we prefer to not communicate with. When sending emails you hope that your email does not fall into either of those categories causing your email to possibly not get opened.

All too often onliners misuse the Subject: field thereby hindering the potential of their email being opened resulting in their messages being blocked, deleted or sent to trash. A recent study reflects that 41.1% of recipients determine whether they open an email by virtue of the Subject: field!

Follow these simple Subject: field tips to give your emails the best chance of being opened:

• Never confuse the Subject: field with the body of the email. You do not want to use the Subject: field to ask a question or make a point and leave the body of the email empty. Not only is doing this the epitome of lazy, it is spammy (spammers send blank e-mails with only graphics and code all the time) and you risk your email being blocked by spam filters.
• Always include an appropriate, short and accurate Subject:. Many email programs auto delete subjectless email to Junk/Trash. You also want to avoid using words such as hello, hi and help as these may trigger spam filters.
• Type your subject with appropriate capitalization and structure. All small case or all caps gives the impression of being spam (not to mention lack of education or business technology skills).
• Refrain from using common terms abused by spammers in your subject and/or first paragraph of your email. You know what they are - you see them every day. Many spam filters track these terms and may inadvertently send your email right to Trash.

Remember, when using any sort of spam software or filtering system, before you purge your trash, it doesn't hurt to take a quick peek to see if any email is in fact from folks you know or recognize who didn't follow the guidelines above.

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