Following this checklist will ensure your email messages successfully reach your recipients and will increase the likelihood of your messages being accepted, not marked as spam/junk, by your recipients.

Things for you to do:

• • Send your initial lists to clean lists (people you know well who won't hit the spam button)
  • Use lead nurturing to send relevant content based on roles, actions and interests
  • Only send to old database contacts once you develop a good reputation
  • Consider using a different but related domain for sending emails
  • Setup SenderID and SPF
  • Setup postmaster@ and abuse@ email addresses
  • Avoid buying, renting or borrowing lists from 3^rd parties
  • Check the integrity of your contact lists before and after an upload
  • Create great marketing content
  • Segment your marketing content into smaller chunks vs. sending "clusters"
  • Get people's permission before adding them to an email marketing track
  • Embed a "Safely Unsubscribe" and "Privacy Policy" link at the bottom of your messages
  • Do not be too aggressive with your email communications especially at first (think dating)
  • Use auto-responders that cross promote
  • Use an active email address as your reply-to email address
  • Make the unsubscribe process easier than the subscribe process
  • Use your colors and logo in your content so your recipients recognize you
  • Don't include too many images (<=4) in your messages
  • Keep your messages small (< 37K Bytes)
  • Follow CAN-SPAM Act requirements

Things to do with Lead Liaison's support:

• • Setup DKIM/DomainKeys
  • Send from a dedicated IP address, not a shared IP address
  • Start by warming up your IP address and sending a small amount (<1,000) of messages
  • Process hard and soft bounce emails and test
  • Check blacklist records occasionally to make sure your dedicated IP address is not on any lists
  • Make sure you tag your contacts with a lead source
  • Segment current and future contacts by building Lead Liaison Segmentations
  • Build several landing pages and web forms to increase lead capture and build subscribers
  • Keep web form fields simple
  • Send a text representation with your html email
  • Monitor feedback loops and resolve spam complaints
  • Avoid using spam-like words ("free") in your messages