Need Help With My Email Subject Line!

Absolutely not!

Unfortunately, since spam has become such a huge problem, if you're sending the message to me and I have not explicitly given you my email address or permission to send me email, I'd trash it. In fact, I'd bounce it back as undeliverable.

I have even gone to the trouble of establishing throwaway addresses to use in signing up for newsletters on the net. Once the publishers have proven themselves trustworthy in safeguarding my email address, and have shown they have something worthwhile to send to me (ads included), I unsubscribe the throwaway and subscribe with a good address.

Of the 35 messages I received today, only 7 were from people/newslists I wanted to receive. And while some had interesting Subject lines, it is my rule of thumb to ignore any message to me that I didn't invite.

Of course, if someone references a post of mine, or states his own name (From Dien at SOWPUB, From Boyd:, e.g.) then I download it and read it.

Anything else just gets dumped.

Marye

Marye - I guess I'm like you in that 99% of my mail gets deleted unread, because it's obviously not connected with me, my web business or my web interests; which does mean that occasionally I miss something which might have been useful to me. But you know, when researching topics of interest, surfing through web sites, there are a few gems which are worth contacting with a genuine invitation to joint venture. Using a contact form on a web site and sending a email using that, I don't want to waste time sending something which might be construed as spam when it is a real offer to do ethical business.

I don't build mailing lists of any old address; I don't send out multitudes of offers to the same address; if I have taken the time to write to someone with an invitation, I say on it that it will only be one contact unless they reply they want to deal with me.

I have a contact form on most of my web sites and if someone uses it to contact me, I try to reply. I'm not saying that I catch them all, because sometimes I have a mass delete of mails and I guess some good mail goes with the bad stuff. But that's why I have a contact form; to let people who are interested in my web site/business/ethics get in touch and introduce themselves.

Cheers
Maggie

It will automatically mark some messages as spam, probably spam, or as having a virus attached.

I recommend it because you can set it to flag messages, but give you the final option as to whether to delete it or let it through.

With what you must be receiving with your business email addresses, this might help keep you from deleting legitimate messages to you, while allowing wholesale spam to be bounced back and deleted.

Shame that what was a fine method of personally communicating has been usurped by unscrupulous sorts so that legitimate business people can't use it effectively.

Good luck.

Marye

Marye,

Thanks for the recommendation - I'll check it out.

I'm with you in wishing that emails weren't being used as a blanket marketing exercise to millions of potential clients. It makes genuine contact extremely difficult.

Cheers!
Margaret

Okay. So subject line doesn't make much sense. Although, I am sure, given time we could link it all together in a logical way...

Anyway. How long does it take you to make your mind up about an email?

Instant?

I look at the Subject and From while hovering over the Delete button. Developed an INSTINCT for what is and is not SPAM. From trial and error maybe.

Of course, anything with "xyzhbk lkfnid" anywhere - in the from or subject - is a dead give-away. So too any sex words, medication, loans, etc.

Sometimes. They try to trick you. Send email with "Hello" in subject line.

Getting a sixth-sense about those too.

Basically, if I didn't ask for it, don't know you, and the subject has no amount of genuine personalization (see my other post in this thread), it's nuked un-opened.

Don't bounce back stuff because the last thing I want is some spammer to think it's a dud address and start using it as a From address. Already get enough of that as it is. (It's spooky to get a spam with your own from address on it.)

As for BTU... that stands for Bandwidth Throttling Ubiquity.

Spam is like a pebble in a pond. Starts out from the middle and goes everywhere similtaneously. WOW, so my subject line does make sense after all hehe.

Michael Ross