Spamming has always been one of the worst nightmare in the life of a web surfer and anyone else except the spammers themselves. Spamming is also causing some serious problems for those business owners who advertise in a legitimate manner. Spam filters of emails are continuously blocking most marketing emails, and also those which the customer might have requested. In this way these spammers are spoiling the business of internet marketing in general.

These spammers find emails in various different ways from the interent. They can find them on websites, mailing lists, blogs, forwarded emails, hacking, etc. Then the sell these emails to interested buyers to make money. Since this is their business, they continuously devise new ways of avoiding spam filters. Spammers usually sell products like viagara, pharmaceuticals, memberships, etc. Many times these emails also carry deadly viruses. These viruses can either affect your computer and sometimes can also steal information. So how exactly are we going to stop these spammers and at the same time do business and internet marketing inspite of these spam filters blocking our emails?

As mentioned earlier, even though the spammers are becomeing increasingly sophisticated in their attacks, technology is also not far behind. Their filters are becoming smarter day by day and cyberlaws are also becoming more stringent.

That is fine as far as spammers are concerned, but legitimate business owners should take proper precautions so that we can be fairly sure that our emails are reaching our intended audience.

Use simple text based emails with simple and compact subject lines. Spam filters are programmed to catch common phrases in subject lines. Hence using simple subject lines can definitely increase your chances of passing the filters and also of the email being opened by the reader. Try to make the subject line as personal as possible. If you know the name of the person or his company name better use it. As far as your sales message is concerned, use a simple and short text message and provide a link to your website where he can get further details about your products or services. Always offer an unsubscribe link through which an uninterested user can discontinue receiving emails from you.

Since spam filters are programmed to catch words and phrases, these days spammers are increasingly using images and graphics in the emails to get past these filters. Hence spam filters of the future will also have to consider this approach of the spammers and should have the ability to read text as well as graphics.

Besides email there are other ways of advertising your business online. You can try putting up a blog where users can interact with you and with each other. At the same time do beware of blog spammers. Yes! Alas these spammers have cast their evil eyes on blogs, websites, and public forums in an attempt to sell their products.

Hence we as users and legitimate business owners should make it a point to not fall for these spammers in whichever form they exist. If you are using your email, try to be sure of the source where it is coming from. Be very careful of opening emails from unverified sources, especially those having attachments. As far as blogs and public forums are concerned, try not to respond to spammed messages, and if possible try to get them removed by complaining to the webmaster. The defeat of spammers lies in your lack of response to the spammer’s messages and their products. I understand that this might not be always possible but ignoring them is one of the best ways in which we can win the battle against spamming.