It seems more marketers these days are forgetting email marketing best practices in their campaigns. According to SiteProNews, email marketers have begun using some “creative” strategies to encourage recipients to open their emails. These strategies are actually nothing more than deceptive practices much like those used to bypass email content filtering.

In this latest trend, unethical email marketers use the brand name of GoToWebinar in their subject lines. Their mail may appear something like, “Gotowebinar Courtesy Reminder.” Thinking he signed up for something, the recipient opens the message and is tricked into reading the sales copy, or worse, tricked into clicking a link to a webinar that he never really registered for.

Trickery and deception have no place in the email marketing. In fact strategies like this go against the number one rule of build trust with your prospects.

Email marketing best practices suggest not sending any marketing emails to people who have not opted in to mailings at least twice, the double opt-in. This prevents your customers from becoming irritated with constant mailings that they don’t want and keeps you in compliance with the Can-SPAM laws.

Marketers also expressed concern that deceptive practices make it more difficult on those who practice not only effective email marketing techniques, but honest, non-deceptive ones as well.