Best Practices for Email Deliverability

To make sure your email marketing is delivered properly has become difficult task these days, with emerging Spam filters. The open and click through rates have increasingly come down by 20-30% due to incorrect Spam filters.

Permission- Confirming people who ask for your information have actually requested to be on your list is the number one step in the battle for email deliverability. When you are starting email campaigns make sure you have permissions from the leads to send emails- i.e. opt-in emails. These people who are in the opt-in email list will not spam your emails. If the target audience is new for email campaigns, give them unique links so that they can sign up or emails in future from you.

Subscriber Addresses- When requesting website visitors to opt-in ask for their “real” or “primary” email address instead of a free email address like Yahoo or Hotmail. Free emails tend to be thrown away accounts and typically have shorter lifetime than a primary ISP address.

List Maintenance- Always promptly remove undeliverable addresses that bounces when sending email to them. An address that bounces with a permanent error 2-3 times in a 30 day period should be removed from the list.

Message Format- Usage of HTML messages to allow for text formatting, multiple columns, images, and brand recognition is growing in popularity. It is widely supported by most email client software as well. If sending HTML it is important to always send plain text alternative messaged, also called text/HTML multi-part time format.

Content- Even content is filter based. Be careful while using words/phrase, Website URL, Images or Attachments. These things can be used by someone else to send Spam emails and cause damage to your reputation and your business. Also avoid using emails which is filled only with images, this might cause Spam.

These are few best practices to avoid Spam emails.

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Email Marketing - Timing/frequency

Marketers in a hurry to get more response and clicks, send a single message to the entire list. The result is very low response rate. One message can never fit in to your entire list. If you are targeting B2B market, segment it based on company revenue, size, number of employees, etc. For B2C market, segment it based on budget, age, sex, interest, etc. Now modify and customize your email message based on each segment and send. You are sure to get good response.

To learn about how a start up company should go for email marketing..Read "19 Sage Advices on Email Marketing!"

Simply aping what worked well for big companies can never work for their smaller counterparts.  It's always good to find when your email recipient is going to reply to your emails. Finding your target audience and preparing a content impressing them very much solves your timing puzzle.

Your role however doesn't end after figuring out the most suitable time for your audience. Your work actually starts from here. Preparing a strategy to send relevant content is the only way you can nurture them and engage them for long, till they agrees to buy.

An important perspective is that allowing your prospect to decide the most suitable time to contact them. In your Contact Us page add a tab asking ‘the right time to contact you’, this way you are giving them the choice hence they might get impressed. Their timings however might not be a very profitable one for your business but it’s better than annoying them with untimely message and force them to hit unsubscribe…

Learn a lot more about Email Marketing in 19 Sage Advices on Email Marketing.

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How small and mid-size business can succeed in email marketing

Email marketing is not a new concept now. Big, established brick and mortar businesses too have put their feet firm into this channel. Due to this, it is not very easy for small and mid-sized businesses to compete and move ahead of their bigger competitors.

The best thing about email marketing is that it is affordable. It doesn’t require much investment and hence upcoming business too can give it a try without fear. There are some important things about email marketing which a beginner should be aware of and experienced should keep practicing and following it. These are:

Sign up and Welcome email

When a visitor comes to your website and shows interest in your products and services by signing up, it is an email marketing etiquette to send a ‘Thank you and Welcome Email to him. Always mention your reverse address and opt out link in your email. You emails without an unsubscribe link is an intrusion without apologizing. Secondly, email frequency and the content need your close attention. In the very first mail that is the ‘Welcome mail’, clearly mention how frequently will you be sending the mails, 10 days, every fortnight, monthly, etc. Mention, also in the 'Welcome Email' about how frequently (say one in 15 days) you will send and the subject/topic of the future emails.

Opt-in list

Running a campaign with a poor list, with stale contacts is like inviting ISPs to block you as a spammer. Sending unsolicited mails to people who have not given you their permission to do so is against CAN-SPAM Act, 2003 and your shouldn’t practice it.

 

To learn about how a start up company should go for email marketing..Read "19 Sage Advices on Email Marketing!"

Blacklist

ISPs and ESPs are very strict and ensure their clients are well-protected from getting spam mails. For this they install filters that block emails that are suspicious, don’t comply with their rules, and are not authenticated, etc. All such names, ip addresses, and domain are recorded under ‘Black List’. Once your name gets blacklisted you cannot send emails to your target audience till your name is removed from the list. This might take more than 3 months. Hence it is always advisable to send mails to opt-in lists only.

Email deliverability

With spammers finding all the notorious ways to enter to inbox, ISPs and ESPs raise their safety measures bar high and strong. However, the worst victims are those marketers who send emails to opt-in list but get suspected as false positives due to objectionable terms, phrases or other attributes. This abstain their genuine messages to reach to the target audience. Email deliverability is one thing that every marketer is struggling to improve. As a marketer you should:

Understand CAN-SPAM Act, 2003 for email marketing guidelines.

Authenticate your brand name and ip address by providing all the necessary details like nature of business, nature of messages you are going to send, and email marketing practices you are adopting.

Avoid spammy words that trigger the spam filters installed by ISPs and ESPs and your recipient’s mind.

Request email recipients to add your name and email address to their address book.

To know more about email deliverability and other email marketing tips...Must read "19 Sage Advices on Email Marketing!"

Other important things are list segmentation, tracking your email campaigns, etc. All these and more will be discussed in the next article.

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