If you’re spending time creating great emails for your customers and contacts, crafting amazing offers and have developed a range of products and services that you know are beneficial to the people in your contact list, you need to ensure that you're doing all that you can to get that content in front of the people you want to see it.
As with all email marketing platforms, deliverability is the measurement of an email's success in reaching a desired contact’s inbox. However, that deliverability depends on you, as it relies on the quality of your list, the content, your reputation, etc.
Here are my top tips to help you ensure that your emails have the best chance of getting in front of existing and potential customers:
1. Authenticate your email address via Domain Keys Identified Mail
This inserts a hidden signature into your email header and places a public key on your website that verifies the authentication of the email signature, helping to build your reputation as an email sender.
There are other ways to do this, including Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance (DMARC)—it’s best to speak to your email marketing provider if you need more information about this, as it can provide step-by-step guidance for your specific platform.
2. Make sure you’ve got permission to market to your email list
If you’ve bought an email list, or are sending marketing material to people who haven’t explicitly agreed to receive your content, you’re not only running the risk of falling foul of the General Data Protection Regulations, but there is also an increased chance that your email will be flagged as SPAM. SPAM complaints can have an impact on your deliverability on email marketing platforms.
Recipient activity and engagement can have an impact on whether or not your emails are sent to a contact’s SPAM folder or the inbox, so make sure that your list is full of people who actually want to see your content. When it comes to your list for email marketing, it’s quality over quantity that’s important!
3. Consider a double opt in
As mentioned above, it’s great to know that someone is keen to receive your emails. When someone confirms that they're happy to receive marketing via a double opt in, they're listed as ‘confirmed’ contacts, which not only helps you to prove that you're able to market to them (for GDPR purposes), but makes it more likely that they'll open and engage with your content and not move it to their junk folder.
Clients want to do business with people who are on top of things. Stay on point, on task, and up to date with gentle reminders that prompt you to take the next step—like sending an intro email to a new lead. Try a demo here: https://t.co/JJw45nTyXG pic.twitter.com/5aeUzRks5H
— Keap (@KeapGrowing) May 1, 2020
4. Don’t be spammy
Even if someone has agreed to receive marketing from you, bombarding them with daily sales emails (if they didn’t realize they were going to be sent daily!) can be perceived as spammy, and might increase your risk of spam complaints. Using spam trigger words in your email title—words like ‘free’, ‘money’, and ‘reminder’—can cause your message to be flagged as spam.
5. Consider sending statistics and refine marketing efforts regularly
Even if your email marketing efforts seem to be working, don’t rest on your laurels. Email Marketing tools like Keap can provide useful feedback on the open rate and engagement statistics (as well as number of complaints, etc.) of each email you send, so keep an eye on these and if you see engagement slipping or complaints increasing, it’s time to review your marketing plan and consider cleaning up your mailing list to remove inactive and unengaged contacts.
Remember, if you need help improving email engagement and deliverability, it’s worth speaking to an email marketing specialist who will be able to objectively review your activity to date, and help you develop a refined strategy that’s more likely to get your content in front of the people who really want and need your products and services!
About the author
Charlotte Wibberley is a Keap/Infusionsoft Certified Partner and a Facebook Ads Strategist. She passionately supports small businesses and freelancers, and splits her time between working with entrepreneurs on effective online business strategy, implementing membership sites, tech and Infusionsoft, coaching new and existing business owners and spearheading a revolutionary and collaborative movement for VAs and freelancers with her industry organization for Virtual Assistants, the Association of Professional Virtual Assistants.
