Roundup of Top Anti-Spam Solutions Law Firm Marketers Need to Know About

Legitimate law firm email marketers need to know about the major anti-spam solutions being deployed so you don't fall victim to "false positives", i.e., getting your legitimate email to clients and other contacts improperly blocked as spam.

A recent post on the AllSpammedUp blog does a nice job of summarizing the key anti-spam solutions:

1. Source IP Filtering: this technique compares the IP address of an incoming email to a list of suspected spam sources (typically compiled by an organization such as SpamHAUS). If the IP address is on the list then the email will be rejected. As AllSpammedUp observes, the downside here are alot of "false positives" since legitimate emails may originate from the same IP address being used by suspected spammers. Which is why we recommend that law firm email marketers use an email marketing service that will give your firm a private (i.e., unique) IP address as part of their core feature package. In this way, your own email "reputation" is not affected by the practices of other accounts.
2. Content Filtering: this technique looks for suspect words and coding inside of emails (like Viagra) and blocks an email if the "score" assigned exceeds a certain threshold (SpamAssasin is a good example). To avoid falling victim to content filters, it's important to use a service that will allow you to scan your emails prior to sending for any words that may trigger filters. Indeed, phrases as innocent as "click here" can raise scores.
3. Sender Verification (a/k/a authentication): Standards such as Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and SenderID use DNS records to verify that the sender of an email is authorized to send email for that domain name. To avoid getting blocked by these tools, a firm needs to use a provider that supports authentication.