Avoiding Spam

After sending several million emails and receiving even more over the last 30 years, I have gained a great deal of experience dealing with email.

With email being so easy to send, it has become a tactic everyone is trying.

As you will have seen, most are terrible, which has resulted in every unwanted message being labelled as spam.

But if you are in business, you will continue to get messages, wanted or otherwise.

So, what is the best solution to stop someone from sending mail?

Things are not what you think!

Let me share some key points that will help you understand your situation.

1 Marketing Lists

The days of buying and selling email marketing lists are generally dead. Only animators use these thanks to email marketing providers pushing to stop them.

Hold that thought.

2 Marketing Software Agencies

Companies that send emails at volume now use marketing agencies that utilise databases like LinkedIn. And because you entered the information that LinkedIn holds and is open to the public, they can email you without your consent.

See where I am going?

So when you ask the sender to remove your name from the list, they may stop sending messages, but your name will stay on the ultimate list.

So, how do you deal with unwanted messages?

Unsubscribe.

Ensure the message you have received is NOT from someone you do not wish to interact with or it may be of genuine interest now or in the future. (Otherwise, this may be hard to reverse).

If the message has a link, hit "Unsubscribe."

Good practitioners always have this at the bottom of the email.

This is THE BEST option to use, as it automatically stops further messages.

Telling them to STOP.

You may be upset by their message, but asking them to stop is not the most productive response.

Sending a paragraph or two explaining your views is also a poor use of your time.

Poor marketers will send thousands of messages and will likely ignore your request. After all, they will have to find your details and then stop it manually, which is time-consuming.

Unsubscribing ensures that it is done, hopefully!

Hitting the SPAM button.

This would seem like the obvious choice, and for emails without an unsubscribe button, it may be the only way to stop further messages.

But a word of warning. Email providers like Google will raise a red flag against YOU if you hit the spam too much.

Sending business messages is not spam, so they follow these guidelines.

Try this as an example.

When you get the next epic email on Linkedin, report it as spam and see the reaction!

So my advice is this;

Hit the spam button if it's from a private account like Gmail. They will close that account toot sweet!

If it is from a business domain, reply with no thanks. Then, delete the message.

Most professional email campaigns automatically stop when you reply. Then, if they continue to message, hit the spam button.

You could argue that "please remove" would also work, but I would make it clear you're not interested.

“Remove” will be ignored.

No thanks is more likely to stop messages.

A subtle but essential difference.

Important Final Thought

You will NOT stop getting messages.

So, spend as little time as possible dealing with them.

No epic replies or profanity. (Except if you get one on Christmas Day).

Remain professional and move on.