If you plan on sending marketing emails to potential clients, then here are some top tips on how to do your best to avoid being labelled as a 'Spammer'. It doesn't happen that often, but sometimes we can all send emails that the recipient may just delete, or mark as spam or report. If the recipient marks it as spam, or reports it as spam, then your email account(s) can be blacklisted. Worst case scenario your domain name can be blacklisted too. If you read this article, it will give you some useful guidance on how to send email for marketing without causing a nuisance.

1st Choice Hosting does not authorise the use of its computer systems to transmit or distribute bulk-email, whether opt-in or otherwise.

The most common issues people face when sending marketing emails are as follows:

1. You didn't even have permission to send them an email. You located their email address, and sent an unsolicited email to someone you don't even know! Now put the shoe on the other foot - how do you feel when you get someone knocking your door or calling you trying to sell you something without invitation? Emails should only be sent to contacts you know or have dealt with.
2. Think about your subject line when you are composing an email to someone. People often overlook subject lines, and may write something like:
Way over the top pitch for John

What's wrong with that? It's spammy! It sounds unprofessional, and as subject lines go it is going to flag up spam filters for sure! It's better to use a proper subject line identifying clearly what the email is about and maybe from whom -
Attention of John - Email from your company name. We can always use less formal subject titles LATER when we have permission from the person we are sending emails too!
3. The content of the actual email - if your email content uses certain phrases or sentences that trigger 'spam filters' the chances are that your email will be marked as spam. Examples of this might be -

Your header content includes 'spammy type comments' - ideally you want to outline precisely who you are and why you are making contact with them initially. Save the personalised stuff for later when you have got a reply!
I have some suggestions on how to improve your website and/or emails. We get emails like this all the time telling us how our website could be better. Guess what? We delete them.
If you’d be at all interested in hearing my other recommendations for boosting sales - it sounds like you are a door to door salesman offering someone a chance at winning at a holiday!
4. Your closing footer and unsubscribe line. When sending emails you ideally should use a professional footer and give the recipient the information about your business with a clear way of opting-out from other emails.

An example would be:

Kind Regards Your Name
Followed by The name of the business
Followed by A postal address
Followed by A contact telephone number or email address
Followed by A way to unsubscribe from other emails. For example:

If you cannot provide an 'unsubscribe' link then its really polite to simply say:
If you would prefer not to hear from us again, simply click 'REPLY' and type in the subject line - UNSUBSCRIBE. We want to make sure that we are not pestering you.

1. If you don't get a reply, or you get an email bounce, then don't send them anymore emails. Put yourself in their shoes - you get one email you delete it. You get 10 emails from the same person and it is starting to annoy you. You receive more and your blood is starting to boil.
2. DO NOT SEND UNSOLICITED emails! Unless you have dealt with this person, you are likely to cause issues.

For more information about email marketing, please check the ICO Spam emails link here which explains how emails under UK law should be handled.