Email is one of the most effective marketing tools because it allows you to fully control your messaging and build relationships with your audience, all while maintaining a high Return on Investment. High deliverability is essential to your email marketing success, as low deliverability and low open rates can make emails from your address seem like spam. This association makes it less and less likely that your target audience will receive your messages, creating a cycle of diminishing returns. Here are some ways you can make your emails more deliverable:
- Protect the integrity of your list. Make sure your list has been obtained legally and ethically. Don’t add people to your list; if you want colleagues and known associates to subscribe, send them a separate email personally inviting them to do so with a link. When adding subscribers through lead magnets, use double opt-in to reduce invalid email addresses given on purpose or by accident. Periodically remove inactive subscribers (it’s nice to give them a couple of chances to remain on your list with automated emails about their subscription ending). Properly segment your lists and tailor content to specific groups.
- Use technical best practices. I recommend using a trusted ESP (Email Service Provider) like Mailchimp, Hubspot, or Constant Contact. This ensures a higher deliverability than sending bulk emails personally through your regular email account (which would almost certainly be reported as spam). ESPs have strict controls and policies in place that make them inherently more trustworthy than individuals. Additionally, they can assist you with problems you might not have the technical capacity to handle. For example, if you are using a dedicated IP address, they can make sure it isn’t blacklisted. Additionally, services like these allow you to use templates that make it easy to optimize your content for mobile, which is another important factor in deliverability.
- Keep your content un-spammy. The best way to not be seen as spam is to not be spam. Avoid spam triggers in your subject lines. These include salesy words like free, urgent, and amazing, as well as overtly sexual phrases and excessive punctuation. Make your subject line compelling, but never misleading. Use personalization to address your recipients by name. Make sure your footers contain legally required information: your physical address and a way to unsubscribe. Most importantly, avoid constant promotion. Provide valuable and interesting content that people actually want to read.
- Find a balance with frequency. It’s hard to know how often you should send emails, especially when you are starting out. Emails that come too often lead to high unsubscribe rates, while emails that come too rarely can lead to your brand being forgotten. Analyze your audience needs and balance them with your marketing goals.
- Pay attention to and learn from analytics. Track open, click-through, and bounce rates. Pay attention when users unsubscribe, mark you as spam, or complain about your emails. From there, you should be able to figure out why these things are happening, and what is working and not working. Use A/B testing to optimize your send times, subject lines, and content. Be consistent long enough to learn, but don’t be afraid to change when something isn’t working.
Substance and Style 