Some email marketers might be surprised to find that their actions (or inactions) might get them classified as spammers. Vigilance and perseverance can help keep your email address off of block lists and ensure that you can get your messages to your target audience.

One important action you can take is to attend to unsubscribes quickly. If you get unsubscribe requests for newsletters or email campaigns, ensure that the email addresses are removed from your list immediately. People do get annoyed if they unsubscribe from a list only to find that they still receive messages from you. Keeping your databases and lists up to date can help reduce spam complaints against you.

Post an anti-spam policy on your site. List what you are doing to reduce spam related to your marketing activities. Show your site visitors that you genuinely are concerned that they receive only the messages they want and that you take spam issues very seriously.

Another way to protect yourself from being labeled a spammer is to not reuse your email lists for multiple campaigns. If a customer signs up for one newsletter, and you send several unrelated newsletters and messages to that address, this may be perceived as spam by users. Allow users to manually select the messages they want to receive. Providing clear ways to opt in and out and easy ways to unsubscribe can help you keep spam complaints down.

Unsubscribes Are Good For You? That’s the title of a blog post by Justin Premick at AWeber Communications. He makes the good point that an “unsubscriber” used to be interested in your messages, and they have changed their mind for a reason. By inquiring on your unsubscribe page the reason for the unsubscribe, you may glean useful data to help you improve your email marketing messages.