mariare … Just so everyone is on the same page — email deliverability affects not only the hard-core email marketer, but anyone who makes contact with their online audience via email. If you have an ezine/enewsletter you need to care. If your an ecommerce site that blasts promotional emails to your current customers, you need to care. Email deliverability is the rate at which your emails actually get to who they are intended for. And, for many reasons your email could not be delivered, pretty much making it useless.
One of the big myths floating around is that having the word “free” in the subject line or within the body of the email, somehow lowers the chance that your email will be delivered. More specifically, that your emails will be filtered automatically to SPAM folders.
Reality? The word “free” is such a common denominator, using it as a filter factor could feasibly eliminate more email from a users system than would be considered good. Its like using the word “the” — all email would filter. However, obivously you wouldn’t want to send an email that only used the word free, spamming will get any email filtered.
So, the next time you see… fr*ee or fr.ee — you’ll know why and how senseless it is to do so.