Email marketing won’t work if your emails don’t land in the inbox. Use these five proven email deliverability tactics to start seeing more clicks … sometimes in just a few days.
Email is still a powerful marketing tool: more than half of the world’s population uses it. And unlike social media, email doesn’t throttle your reach based on an algorithm update and bury your message under trending posts. When you hit “send,” you’re speaking directly to your people.
But here’s the catch: email has its own set of rules. You build a sender reputation with mailbox providers – Google, Yahoo, or Outlook. With every email you send, that reputation grows or gets tarnished, depending on how you play the game.
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It’s in your power to improve email deliverability
The good news? Building trust with mailbox providers is completely in your power. Email deliverability – the number of emails that reach the inbox – doesn’t depend on a mysterious force you can’t control. It’s driven by your behavior as a sender. From the quality of your list to how often you hit send, every choice you make leaves a mark on your email reputation.
Want to land in the inbox and make email work for you? Start with these five good habits to increase your email deliverability.
Keep your email list fresh and healthy
A high bounce rate is one of the worst stains on your sender reputation. If more than 2% of your emails bounce, mailbox providers take notice – could this be someone spamming random email addresses? You lose trust, so your future emails could end up in the spam folder.
Unfortunately, bounces are easy to rack up. People change their email addresses all the time, and professional contacts are even more likely to bounce. The average email list decays by 28% every year. On top of that, you have subscribers who’ve stopped engaging with your emails.
To keep your bounce rate low and help your emails reach the inbox, scrub those outdated and inactive contacts. An email verification service does it quickly and accurately – and with automation, you can validate your list regularly without much effort.
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Authenticate your emails
If you send mass emails every day, you must authenticate them. Major mailbox providers – like Google and Yahoo – now require email authentication to accept your emails.
What is email authentication? It’s a set of protocols – DKIM, SPF, and DMARC – that verify whether an email comes, indeed, from your company and not an impersonator. Adding this extra check helps your messages make it past spam filters.
Once you set it up, email authentication requires little ongoing maintenance. If you’re unsure where to start, your email platform or IT team can help. There’s also no shortage of services that can make authentication easy for you – and protect your email deliverability.
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Warm up your IP and domain
Another way to build or improve your reputation is by warming up your sending IP and domain – especially if you’re just starting out or took a break and resumed emailing. Instead of sending thousands of emails at once, try to increase your volume gradually. This helps you build positive engagement, which means you slowly start earning your place in people’s inboxes.
You can warm up your domain manually by sending emails to small groups of engaged subscribers. If you want more control in ramping up your email volume, you can use an email warmup tool that automates the process.
Keep sending emails regularly. Not only does it keep your IP address and domain warm, it also makes it easy for people to remember you.
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Avoid spam complaints
Few things hurt your email deliverability more than getting reported as spam. For mailbox providers, it’s one of the biggest red flags – a clear signal that people don’t want your emails. To maintain trust, keep your spam complaint rate under 0.3% (that’s no more than three reports for every 100 emails you send).
Staying under the 0.3% threshold is easy if you send emails responsibly:
Build your own email list and never add any subscribers who haven’t opted in.
Stay away from deceptive subject lines. Clarity and simplicity always win.
Include a prominent unsubscribe link in every email to give people an easy way out.
Also, don’t bombard your subscribers with emails – some will mark your message as spam just to stop hearing from you.
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Strive for consistent engagement
Of course, you want engagement for your emails – the more people click through, the higher your conversion rate. But healthy engagement rates also play a role in your email deliverability. Opens, clicks, replies, and forwards are all positive signals. They tell mailbox providers your content is worthy, so your chances of landing in the inbox go up.
To get those clicks, segment your list and send each group hyper-relevant emails. Think behavior-based triggers and personalized emails that speak to what they most care about. And don’t ghost your list. Sending emails regularly helps maintain a strong reputation and enhances brand awareness.
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Bonus email deliverability tips to keep your business in the inbox
Once you’ve nailed the basics – keeping your list healthy, authenticating your emails, warming up your domain, and setting up a sending schedule – here are a few more tips that can give your email deliverability a boost:
Keep your emails lean. Servers can reject emails with large images and overly complex formatting. Keep that in mind when designing your emails.
Test before you send. Use an inbox placement tester to determine whether your email is likely to land in the inbox or the spam folder. These tools help spot any issues before you reach out.
Avoid spammy language. Words like free or limited time won’t affect your email deliverability if you have a good reputation. But make sure your content doesn’t sound like spam – both filters and real people pick up on that tone.
Use a real reply-to address. No-reply emails can feel impersonal and don’t provide your audience with a way to communicate with you. Use a real inbox your team can monitor.
Invite replies. Opens and clicks are great for your deliverability, but replies are an even more positive indication of relevance. Ask questions and encourage your subscribers to write you back. Just make sure you’re monitoring replies and responding when they do.
They say the money’s in the list. However, your list won’t earn you anything if your emails end up in the spam folder. To set yourself up for success, adopt these habits and continue to send emails people love and engage with.
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