There is nothing worse than spending days perfectly planning out a very strategic promotional campaign and writing out all the emails only to send them all right to the spam folder right?

Did you know that these days 2/3 emails coming in actually wind up in the spam filter and an additional 68% go right to the promotions folder?

The promotions tabs is definitely no place you want to be as only 19% of those emails are ever read.

There are already a million different things toworry about when launching a new product or sending out a promotion, worrying about whether your email actually winds up in the right folder shouldn’t be something you need to think about but sadly these days it definitely is.

Spam filters have always been a problem but they’ve gotten progressively more and more intelligent which can make it feel like your fighting a losing battle but the truth is there are actually somethings you can do to ensure that all your hard work pays off and you actually land in the inbox.

Let’s talk about 3 things you can do to increase your chances of writing engaging profitable emails that actually get opened because they wind up in your audiences inboxes.

So the first thing you can do is stay away from triggering words.

Did you know that there is actually a list of words that trigger the spam filter automatically? I definitely didn’t and this list actually grows longer and longer each year.

This list includes obvious words like free, sale, promotion but its grown to include less obvious words like amazing.

Generally there are 3 different groups of words you should stay away from to stay out of the spam filter. The first type of spam trigger are actually not words but symbols. So using things like money signs, excessive exclamation marks or even percentages signs that might indicate you are selling something and offering a discount of a certain percent? These types of symbols alert the spam filter that you are trying to sell something. So it’s a good thing to keep in mind, that’s not to say that you can’t ever use them but if you feel like your emails are consistently being sent to crickets try avoiding these symbols for awhile and see if your open rate increases.

The second type of words you should avoid are words that create a false sense of urgency. If you find yourself using words or phrases like hurry act now! Don’t let this deal expire, limited time only you run the risk of triggering the spam filter so try to think about other ways you can create a sense of urgency without using these obvious words and phrases.

The third category of words or phrases you should try to avoid in your email content and subject lines are things that create false promises. If you use phrases that might sound like you are promising money or easy weight loss you won’t make it in the inbox. These phrases include words like big bucks, pure profit, lose weight, cures, no gimmick etc.

So the first thing you can do to ensure your emails actually get delivered is avoid words that will likely trigger the spam filter in both your subject line and in your email body copy.

I’ve actually put together a pretty thorough list of spam triggering words and symbols you can download at the link below.

The second thing you can do is watch your text to image ratio. Images can certainly make your emails more attractive and engaging but using too many images in your email can also trigger the spam filter. It’s a good idea to keep your image to text ratio to about 20:80 percent ratio. Not only will this keep you out of the spam filters but images can be slow to load and certain subscribers might have images turned off. Its also a good rule of thumb to use at least 400 characters in your email.

Then finally the third thing you can do to increase your email deliverability and open rates is to keep your subject lines simple.

This is so tricky because you want to hook your readers attention right but you want to avoid the attention of the spam filter so words you think might be extra hooky for your readers are likely going to get you in trouble with the spam filters. You want to use a good hook and enough curiosity that it gets open but not be so complex that it gets discarded.

Recent statistic show that 47%  percent of emails are discarded based solely on the subject line! Since email inboxes are inundated with hundreds, maybe even thousands, of emails per day, catchy and clear email subject lines are more important than ever. Your one subject line alone can often be the determining factor of whether your email even gets opened or not. Sometimes subject lines that use only a word or two can stand out and get the most engagement.

It’s also good to remember that often your subscribers are checking their emails on their phone and deleting emails that don’t convey urgency. So the third thing you can do to make sure your emails are delivered and actually opened is try keeping your subject line under 40 characters or about five to seven words. I hope you found these tips helpful if you are a digital course creator or coach and you need more help building and nurturing a list of highly targeted leads make sure you check  out the list builder’s toolkit at the link below.

We’ve included every single email template you need to build a profitable course or coaching business and lots of other helpful resources.