For businesses of all sizes, marketing know-how is  a must-have. CSO Insights’ 2010 Lead Generation Optimization report indicates that over 60% of respondents rank email marketing as one of their top three marketing programs based on lead quality and quantity. It’s no wonder that marketing automation is so hot right now.

Of course email marketing only works if the recipient actually sees the email; that’s getting harder with today’s aggressive spam filters.  Here are six critical things you must do to get out of (or hopefully never enter) spam exile, into the inbox and read:

1. Email reputation really does matter. Your email reputation is made through a combination of factors including what outbound email server you use, what authentication is set up for your domain, how many times your domain has received abuse complaints, if your emails have excessive bounce rates or get sent to spam traps to name a few of the more common ones.  If your email reputation is not good, your deliverability will suffer and into spam exile you go. Using a reputable third-party email or marketing automation tool can help – but you still need to set up authentication and actively manage your email lists.

2. Relationships are important. Sorry, not everyone is going to immediately embrace your product/service and make a purchase. Creating a relationship between you and your email recipient is a must. Don’t think about sending an email as a “blast”; instead think of it as one step in creating an ongoing, mutually beneficial relationship. Your goal with every email should be to further a relationship. This will keep your email recipient on your list and at the top of their mind when they are ready for your product/solution. A well written/executed email with the right tone for your audience is critical. And, emails from an individual person rather than from generic mailbox are always better received.

3. Subject effects open rates. Subject lines are extremely important to the success of your email. They need to convey the reason for the email and give a hint at the content to pique the interest of your recipient. The number of characters visible on the subject line will also come into play. Keep the subject line short and make sure it accurately reflects the content of the email.

4. Content is still king. If your emails contain content that is not useful for the recipient, he/she will hit delete, unsubscribe or worse – report your email as spam to their ISP. The best emails are those that deliver interesting, informative content. Make sure you strike a balance, especially earlier in the buying cycle, of providing general content about why he/she even needs the product/service your offer. You can link to blogs, articles and other online content to help with content for your emails. Use segmentation to send the right content at the right time. Be aware that some words can trigger spam filters, so choose your words wisely.

5. Design for scanning, different formats. Reading an email is not like reading a book or white paper. Your text should be short and to the point. Use bullets or one sentence paragraphs to make the email easier to scan. Graphical images can be great to help add some visual interest, but many email programs, especially Outlook, default to turning graphics off and most mobile devices display text only. If all your critical information is in graphics, your message will be lost. Also, email programs (again we have to thank Microsoft Outlook for this) can ignore inline CSS and other advanced html features. Make sure you test to see what your email will look like in various readers, with and without graphics.

6. Lies, damn lies and statistics. Mark Twain made the point that metrics can be used in many ways. Use the metrics from your email campaigns to understand what is working, make improvements and even to figure out how to segment your audience.

Each of the six critical things listed here are important to ensure you stay out spam exile and have successful email campaigns. What experiences have you had with spam exile?

Sheila Baker is a senior technology executive with over 20 years experience in marketing, sales and engineering. For the past five years, she has been focused on demand generation including email nurturing to achieve success for her clients. She also assists clients in defining and implementing closed loop lead to sales processes using marketing automation tools and Salesforce CRM.