Email deliverability tips all marketers need to know
Looking at bounce reports, receiving negative feedback, and realizing your emails are hitting spam folders, are all signs that your email deliverability is not where it should be. These put all your efforts to waste and will leave you wondering just where you have gone wrong.
To prevent these issues and to improve your email deliverability, our experts at Inboxroad put together a list of our top tips, so you can ensure your emails are actually being opened.
Ensure your data quality with double opt-in
These days, it is not ok to email anyone without their permission, so although the idea of buying an email list might be tempting for you to be able to reach more people, it’s definitely a bad idea.
It is also illegal due to the CAN-SPAM act and new GDPR regulations.
Using a double opt-in signup process is the right way to go about acquiring new subscribers. This is where an email is sent to the subscriber after they have given their email address, so they can reconfirm they are the owner of the email and that they want to receive your newsletters. The other option you have is using single opt-in, where subscribers will enter their email address once but they don’t need to confirm before you start sending emails.
Double opt-in is by far the most secure choice out of the two. Here, transparency is key, as you can let the subscriber know exactly what you are going to send them, and how often.
Although implementing a double opt-in method might seem like a slower way of acquiring subscribers, it is something that every email marketer should do and definitely worth it to ensure that you only have willing recipients on your email list.
Segment your subscribers based on their activity
The subscribers that open your emails and click through are the ones that you absolutely need to keep track of during your email campaigns since they will give you your ROI.
But, it is also important to identify and keep an eye on your inactive subscribers.
People may no longer engage with your emails for an assortment of reasons – perhaps they’re too busy, you’re sending too many emails, or their interests have changed. Once you have identified who these people are, you can try lowering your email frequency to see if you get any bites or develop a reactivation campaign to recover those inactive subscribers.
If a reactivation campaign still does not get any positive response, your only choice is to stop sending emails to these addresses, otherwise you risk hurting your reputation by these addresses turning into spam traps.
Only send relevant content
Misleading your subscribers about the content that you are going to send them is never a good idea, so you should always be transparent and send only what you promise.
When subscribers sign up through the double opt-in method, you have the chance to state the frequency and type of content that you will be sending. While it may seem harmless sending out an unrelated offer or marketing campaign, if you fail to meet the expectations that your receivers have, you’re only going to shoot yourself in the foot and see a higher number of unsubscribes, and even worse, spam complaints.
As a marketer, you are likely well aware of the dangers of spam complaints to your business, so do the right thing and keep your reputation intact. When sending out an email, ask yourself the question, is this something that I would like to receive myself? Does it add value for my subscribers?
You also need to be careful about the wording that you use and you should always avoid spam words in your email template. Spam filters are getting smarter and smarter and will easily kick your email to the spam folder if they pick up a lot of these words in your content.
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Thanks for reading. Keep an eye out on the Inboxroad blog as we will post part 2 and 3 of this article in the coming weeks!
