Get Your E-Mail Messages Through

Greg Crandell, DigitalMailer
July 9, 2008 | COMMENTS

Spam is here to stay, and the enemy is gaining ground. But take heart: Spam filters are becoming more sophisticated, with forceful weapons that can fight off the worst of foes.

That's good news, but where does it leave you—the legitimate e-mail marketer with important information your members want to read? New tools put in place to combat spam are blocking your e-mail communications as well.

Internet service providers (ISP) have new rules that immediately will shut off your outbound e-mail or place your Internet protocol address and domain on their blacklists. New rules are based on:

• Volume of e-mail sent in a given timeframe
• Content of the e-mail and percent of images to text
• Number of recipients reporting the e-mail as spam in a given timeframe
• The practice of repeatedly sending e-mails to addresses previously reported as bad
• Incorrect sender policy framework (SPF) records

Do Your E-Mails Reach Their Targets?

Without strong e-mail practices and some elbow grease, it will be almost impossible to mass e-mail your members in the near future. E-statement notifications, e-newsletters, promotional e-mails, and e-survey invitations are getting financial institutions across the country blacklisted each month.

A strong spam checker on outbound e-mail is becoming one of the most important tools for ensuring your messages even are considered for delivery by the major ISPs. Financial institutions and top-notch e-mail service providers should employ a forceful system that routinely tests outbound e-mail messages and alerts you to problems. If a message scores too high, you can make the necessary changes to send it on its way.

Department of Labor Federal Credit Union in Merrifield, Virginia, learned firsthand the value of a good spam checker on outbound e-mails.

"We had two e-mail alerts that didn't pass a tough spam-check process," explains Joan Moran, president/CEO of the $51-million-asset credit union. "Our scores weren't outrageous, but the ratio of images to text was higher than normal, which served as a red flag that we were above the normal threshold. We were notified right away so we could adjust the copy and graphics."

Moran says the minor inconvenience of altering content or subject lines is a small price to pay for knowing her credit union's e-mail alerts reach their destinations. That's even more important in Department of Labor Federal's case because most of its members are federal employees or contractors, and government spam filters are notoriously intolerant.

Knowing that e-mail messages from the credit union are safe-listed also provides comfort to members, Moran says. "We have permission to send e-mail alerts to nearly 20% of our members, and we're working for 100%. Most of our members are web-savvy, but they still worry about being attacked. They're quick to let us know if they receive bogus e-mail that looks like it's coming from us."

The credit union uses e-mail alerts to educate members on a variety of topics—including bogus e-mail alerts. "We've had very good pickup with our alerts. Members like communicating with us in that way," Moran says. "The key is to keep members informed, carefully design messages, and take advantage of spam-check services. That's making a big difference for us."

Be Battle-Ready

For most credit unions, staying out of spam filters requires adjusting their own systems or working with e-mail service providers that know how to play well with ISPs around the world.

But if you decide to go it alone, be sure to:

• Get your financial institution's e-mail system certified or safe-listed with ISPs.
• Use internal spam-check tools to evaluate outgoing e-mail to truncate, and repair, e-mail campaigns that are likely to trigger spam filters at ISPs.
• Consider an e-mail software engine that uses throttling programs and more to ensure you conform to your ISP's requirements for numbers of e-mails sent and numbers sent in specified periods.
• Shut off automatically bad e-mail addresses reported by ISPs, and don't send to them again.
• Give careful consideration to e-mail content and the number of images in the e-mail.
• Choose your subject line carefully, avoiding words and punctuation that might look suspicious or illogical.
• Ensure the recipient's name is displayed in the "to" box and that your full name, or financial institution's name, is in the "from" box.
• Send preference-based e-mail messages. Ask members' permission to send them e-mail, and let them choose the type they receive (i.e., loan promotions, rate changes, or account notices). That makes your institution a welcome guest in their e-mail inboxes.
• Register your own SPF records to protect against forged sender addresses and to meet the growing list of ISPs requiring this form of identification.
• Monitor "end-user spam reporting" and research why members reported the e-mail as spam.

Greg Crandell is executive vice president for DigitalMailer in Herndon, Virginia. Contact him at 866-994-4900 or g.crandell@digitalmailer.com. This story first appeared at www.creditunionmagazine.com and is reprinted with permission.