How to Spam Check Your Press Releases

Here's a tool you need to add to your PR toolkit ASAP: a free automatic content-checker that you can use to test your outgoing email before you send it to see if it is likely to get caught in a spam filter.

This tool is essential if you are sending out a lot of email pitches and wondering, "did the reporter even get my email? did it get caught in a spam filter?" This tool obviously also works with any other mission-critical email that you're planning to send.

How does it work? You just following the instructions on the page, which tell you to send an email to their address marked TEST, and it will come back to you shortly with an analysis of how your email would have fared going through the SpamAssassin spam filtering program. It also gives you tips on how to de-spam-ize your email to get a lower spam score and hence give your email a greater likelihood of going through.

BTW, here's an alternative free spam-checking service if you want to try a different one.

I got this tip from Peter Shankman of Helpareporter.com, who will be a panelist on an upcoming Bulldog Reporter PR University audio conference with me called, "Perfect Email Pitches: Master PR Scribes Reveal How to Craft Copy That Turns Heads and Earns Media Ink." Peter reports that HARO, as his service is called, now has 12,000 members and is generating revenue through sponsorships.