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Archive for Spam

How to write emails that get RESPONSED to ON TIME!

Posted by: standss | Comments (1)
Wednesday, February 16th, 2011

Here are few simple things you can do to greatly increase the chances of getting a response to your email that are useful and on time.

1. Make sure that your email has a meaningful Subject.

Before anyone responds to your email, they have to read it… and they need to actually open your email before they can read it.

We all get too many emails these days and the email with the most important/relevant/interesting Subject gets our attention first. Everything else can wait till we have time.

If you need a response from the reader of the email, make sure that the Subject spells out the topic quickly.

A Common Mistake
One common practise that results in many many emails with the wrong Subject:

You want to write to Mr X whose email you don’t have immediately available… so you find an older email from them… and click Reply. You delete out the contents of the email and write what you want to write… but leave the old Subject.

Remember to change the Subject… or use something like Send Guard for Outlook which automatically prompts you if you try and Reply to an email that is too old (you get to decide what is too old)

2. If your email has a deadline then put the actual date/time in the Subject too.

e.g. XYZ Meeting. Please confirm if attending by 3 PM 14-Feb.

This way there is an immediate indicator to the reader if action is required quickly.

Personally I find an actual date/time in the Subject to be much more effective than putting words like URGENT. Too many spammers use those words to try and get action now.

Put in an actual date/time so it is super-obvious exactly when a response is required by.

3. Try not to ask for too many different unrelated things on one email

If it is going to take too much effort (like looking for information not immediately available) to respond to your email then the reader will probably leave it in their Inbox for later… for when they have more time.

Unless it is something that is critical for the reader (as opposed to being important to you), there’s a good chance you won’t get a response… at least not quickly.

I hope you find these tips helpful in getting better responses to your emails. If you have your own tips for getting faster and better responses, please let us know by leaving a comment on the blog.

Categories : Outlook Email Tips, SendGuard for Outlook
Comments (1)

Automatic Safe Sender Maintenance for Outlook Junk Folder

Posted by: standss | Comments (0)
Sunday, November 7th, 2010

I think Outlook’s Junk Email Folder does a fantastic job of keeping spam out of my Inbox but … occasionally real emails end up there. Here’s a quick tip to reduce the number of emails that get incorrectly moved to the Junk Email folder.

Outlook has a Safe Sender’s list. Outlook knows that anyone who is on your Safe Sender’s list is authorised to send you email.

It makes sense (most of the time) that anyone you actually write to should automatically be put on your safe sender’s list.

The ability to do this is built into Outlook but is turned off by default. To turn it on…

  • Go to your Inbox.
  • If you are using Outlook 2010, (on the ribbon) click File–Junk–Junk E-mail Options
    For other versions of Outlook, (on the menu) click Actions – Junk Email – Junk Email Options
  • Click the Safe Senders tab.
  • Tick the checkbox “Automatically add people I e-mail to the Safe Senders List”.
  • Click OK.
Categories : Outlook Email Tips
Comments (0)

SPAM ALERT! LinkedIn Emails in your Outlook Inbox may not be real

Posted by: standss | Comments (3)
Monday, October 4th, 2010

Over the last few days I have received several emails in my Outlook Inbox from LinkedIn… turns out that the emails were not from LinkedIn at all. This is the latest trick that spammers are using to get you to click on links that send you to their websites. Luckily…  it is easy for Outlook users find out if a link is safe to click.

But first… What are the dangers of clicking on a spammers link?

One or more of several bad things can happen when you click on a trick link:

  1. You end up going to a website selling stuff you have no interest in.
  2. You end up telling the spammer that the email they sent you was sent to a valid email address… so they send you even more spam… and maybe sell your email address to other spammers.
  3. The website you end up at infects your computer with a virus or worm.

So you need to make sure that the link is real before clicking on it!

How to check to see if the link is valid?

Simply move your mouse over the link (but do not click on it).

Outlook will display the URL that the link is pointing to as shown below.

Spammer's LinkedIn Email

In this case, it is obvious that the link is NOT going to LinkedIn… so don’t click on it… don’t click on ANY of the links in the email… and delete the email too!

Categories : Outlook Email Tips
Comments (3)

The importance of Subject lines in your sales emails

Posted by: standss | Comments (0)
Tuesday, August 31st, 2010

I thought I’d start this week’s blog posts on a short post on one of the most important part of emails… the Subject line. This is particularly important if you are using a tool like EmailMerge for Outlook to send out sales/marketing emails.  Using inaccurate (or worse misleading) Subject lines in your emails can have positive or negative consequences.

The right Subject line can help you get a better response rate

How do you decide which emails in your Inbox need to be read now and which ones can wait till later (possibly forever as they slide further down your Inbox)?

Most people take a quick look at the sender and the Subject line. If you are a VIP to them, chances are they will open your email. Otherwise… Your Subject Line must relate to an important matter or at least an interesting matter… it must get your reader’s attention

And remember…  interesting does not have to mean important… everyone looks for distractions during the day when we take breaks…. get the reader’s attention with your Subject line!

But before you try and make your Subject lines too interesting…

Misleading Subject Lines are against the CAN-SPAM Act

Your subject line, while needing to be interesting enough to get the reader’s attention, must accurately reflect the content of your message. Otherwise you could be getting yourself into some legal trouble… or at least banned to people’s junk mail folders.

Categories : Outlook Email Tips
Comments (0)

Why Outlook users NEED to check emails using their ISPs webmail client too.

Posted by: standss | Comments (1)
Wednesday, July 7th, 2010

I check my emails using Outlook and my IPhone but once a week I still NEED TO USE THE WEBMAIL CLIENT PROVIDED BY MY ISP! The reason is that my ISP is NOT passing all my emails to Outlook. Here’s why and what you can do about it.

Most ISPs now provide some level of SPAM Filtering. This means that many emails are moved by your ISP to an online Junk Emails folder and never make it to your Outlook.

The Good News: In my experience the majority of those emails are SPAM that you did not want to see anyway.

Bad News #1: Your ISP’s filters may stop some work related (non-spam) emails from ever getting into your Outlook.

Bad News #2: Depending on the settings at your ISP, the spam emails may keep piling up in their Junk Emails folder until it reaches the maximum quota allocated to you for your emails… at which point emails sent to you will start bouncing back.

So… you need to login to your email using the web client (URL) provided by your ISP and:

  1. Check the Junk Emails folder for non-spam emails.
  2. Clear out the Junk Emails folder so that it does not fill up.

NOTE: Another alternative is to simply turn off spam-filtering at the ISP end (generally easy to do using your ISP’s web mail client). This means that all the spam emails will come to your computer where Outlook (or other anti-spam software that you have) can filter it out.

The only reason I turned on spam filtering at my ISP is that I was getting too much rubbish on my Iphone which does not have any anti-spam software.

If you have any thoughts on this, please leave a comment on the blog.

Categories : Outlook Email Tips
Comments (1)

Automatic Safe Sender Maintenance for Outlook Junk Folder

Posted by: standss | Comments (2)
Friday, May 28th, 2010

I think Outlook’s Junk Email Folder does a fantastic job of keeping spam out of my Inbox but … occasionally real emails end up there. Here’s a quick tip to reduce the number of emails that get incorrectly moved to the Junk Email folder.

Outlook has a Safe Sender’s list. Outlook knows that anyone who is on your Safe Sender’s list is authorised to send you email.

It makes sense (most of the time) that anyone you actually write to should automatically be put on your safe sender’s list.

The ability to do this is built into Outlook but is turned off by default. To turn it on …

Go to your Inbox.
Click Actions – Junk Email – Junk Email Options
Click the Safe Senders tab.
Tick the checkbox Automatically add people I e-mail to the Safe Senders List.
Click OK.

Categories : Outlook Email Tips, SPAM Filtering in Outlook
Comments (2)

How often should you clear your Outlook Junk Folder?

Posted by: standss | Comments (4)
Wednesday, May 19th, 2010

EVERY DAY! I used to let my junk mail folder collect emails for months until recently… here’s why?

If you’re like me, your Outlook Junk Emails folder will get at least 20 emails in it every day… most of them actually SPAM.

However you’ll occasionally get emails in there that are actual work emails. You can get Outlook to automatically highlight the work emails in your junk emails folder as I outlined in an earlier article.

But it is still very useful to clear your Junk Emails folder on a daily basis because:

  1. This habit makes you go to your Junk Emails folder which gives you the chance to see if Outlook has highlighted any emails that might need your attention (no point in Outlook highlighting them unless you actually look at the folder)
  2. You can also quickly scan through the rest of the emails in the folder to see if there are any other work emails amongst the SPAM.

This will ensure that you respond to incorrectly junk-filed emails in a timely manner.

The whole process is also much easier and quicker since there will be less emails in Outlook’s Junk Emails folder (assuming that you empty the folder out every day) than if you let it pile up over several days, weeks or even months.

Categories : Outlook Email Tips, SPAM Filtering in Outlook
Comments (4)
  

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