Really Insulting e-mails are when pictures are totally nude and frontal.

Uncomfortable e-mails include opposite sex flirting.

All above are Satan's antics; with intent to distract, discourage, and detour us from our calling; and, if he can not do that, then to destroy our credibility, testimony, and witness.

We have all made occasional errors in forwarding e-mails. Let us learn from our mistakes, be a bit wiser, and consider, "What Kind of E-mail are You?"

© 2003 by Joyce C. Lock http://our.homewithgod.com/heavenlyinspirations/ This writing may be used in its entirety, with credits in tact, for non-profit purposes.

- Words/phrases: Choose your language carefully when crafting messages. Avoid hot button topics often found in spam such as medication, mortgages, making money, and pornography. If you do need to use words that might be filtered, don't attempt to obfuscate words with extra characters or odd spelling, you'll just make your messages appear more spam like.

- Images: Avoid creating messages that are entirely images. Use images sparingly, if at all. Commonly used open rate tracking technology uses images to calculate opens. You may choose to disable open rate tracking to avoid being filtered based on image content.

- Attachments: With viruses running rampant and spreading thru usage of malicious email attachments many users are wary of attached documents. It's often better to link to files via a website URL to reduce recipient fear of attachments and reduce overall message size.

- CAN-SPAM Compliance

The January 2004 Federal CAN-SPAM law introduced a number of rules regarding delivery of email. It's important you have your legal counsel review your practices and ensure you are in compliance. The two most important rules include having a valid postal mail address listed in all commercial messages and a working unsubscribe link that is promptly honored to remove subscriber from future messages.

- Reputation

Reputation services are often used by large ISP's as a way to vet email senders regarding their email practices and policies. Businesses listed with these services are then given less stringent filtering or no filtering at all. Several reputation services are:

http://www.isipp.com/iadb.php http://www.bondedsender.com http://www.habeas.com

- Relationships & Whitelisting

Contact with major ISP's and email providers is essential in letting them know about your requested subscriber email. Many large providers such as AOL and Yahoo have specific whitelisting programs and postmaster website areas to ensure your email is delivered as long as you meet their policies and procedures in handling your opt-in list.

Email deliverability is about ensuring requested opt-in email is delivered to intended recipient. While no single tip will enable you to get 100% of your email delivered each one utilized as a group can go a long way to reaching that goal.