If email is a part of your business then you are undoubtedly also dealing with spam. It's probably clogging up your Inbox and, depending on how public you have made your email address and how long you have had your email address, you may be getting dozens of junk emails every day.
First let's discuss some facts as we often get a lot of questions about how to handle spam.
- Spam is now at its highest levels since 2010 with over 200 billion messages per month. That is twice the normal level. If you are feeling like your Inbox is extra spammy these days, you aren't alone.
- There is no way to block all spam. Some web hosting servers have some sort of spam feature (ours is called Spam Assassin), but it doesn't prevent as much spam as you would like it to.
- There is rarely a way for you to stop people from sending you spam. If you can locate who is sending it, sometimes opting out or asking them to stop sending it only validates to the sender that you are a good email address and they will add you to other spam lists.
- If you have your email on public sites (like your own website) you will get spam. The best practice is to have a form instead of an email address listed as spammers have search bots that go out to websites looking for valid email addresses.
One of the issues we have seen first-hand with some clients is that they assume their mail client (Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo, etc.) is doing a good job filtering spam from their Inbox to the Junk/Spam folder. So they never bother to check that junk folder. Big mistake. We have had clients who were receiving legitimate inquiries into their Spam folder and because they were never checking it, they lost out on a lot of business. Ouch. Here's some tips on dealing with your Inbox.
1. Don't rely on your mail service software to do things right.
It has to be trained to know what is spam and what is not. All mail software systems have this option to train so learn how to do this on your own mail client. Here is a nice cheat sheet with instructions how to do this for various mail clients.
2. Check your junk folder at least once a day.
You may be surprised how many legitimate emails wind up there. Your mail client is not foolproof. If you do see good email in your junk folder, train the mail client to deliver it to your Inbox.
3. Get better protection.
Just relying on your webhost and email client to do the job is not enough. Install internet security software on every computer in your office. It not only protects your computer from viruses and attacks but will monitor spam too. Our favorite is Kaspersky Internet Security and they sell multi device licenses. On the flip side, we strongly discourage you from using Norton. Their software tends to take over your computer in a hindering way. We have seen many clients start to have computer issues and more often than not, Norton was the culprit.
4. Don't respond to spam.
Responding to spam is like dumping gasoline to a fire. Delete it and move on.
5. If an email looks suspicious, don't click any links in it.
Take this advice even if it's from a friend. Some spam/virus campaigns are designed to get you to click on a link and when you do, it indexes your address book and spams all your contacts.
6. Protect your email address.
Don't allow your address to be posted anywhere online. Use contact forms to receive leads from your website and don't share your email if you comment in online blogs or forums.
The question you are probably asking is, "How can I just make it stop?" Unfortunately, you can't. If you are getting barraged with hundreds of spam emails per day, our best recommendation is you change your email address and start fresh. It will take a long time for spam bots to find you and if you are protective of your email address, it should be some time before you start receiving spam. Ultimately, if you take the steps above you should be able to make a difference in the amount of spam you receive.
Photo Credit: Spam Prevention/shutterstock