Congratulations, email marketer! You’re a spam artist.
You may not see yourself that way, and you may not want to brand yourself as such, but the truth is that every email we send, every drip campaign we painstakingly organize, every A/B test we fire off—they’re all getting lumped together with Viagra ads and Nigerian-prince scams.
Each email client operates differently, but the fact is that Gmail can tell when you’re sending a massive swath of emails out to thousands of people, and that’s an inherently suspicious action. Even when you have double-opt-in consent to email the person, they may never see your email.
It’s our job, as intelligent people, to elevate our work above the blah. We should hold ourselves to greater standards and ensure our work floats above the sea of meaningless gibberish to which most email clients seem to think we belong.
But, of course, there’s good news: we can achieve this dream. There are ways to keep your emails out of spam folders across the web. Here are nine of them.
Ask to Be Added to Address Book
The first email from your drip campaign should probably include some whitelisting language. Whitelisting, essentially, is the act of labeling an email address as “safe,” to ensure it goes straight to your inbox and avoids the spam folder. Different email clients have different ways of achieving this, but offering some kind of instructional advice is a good start.
We recommend using comfortable, normal language: “Because you took the time to sign up for my emails, I’d love to make sure you read them, so you never miss any deals or offers. Here’s how you can do it.”
Even if only a few people actually comply, that’s a few more who wouldn’t have otherwise, and you’ll see better engagement and open rates as a result.
Use a Real “From” Address
One of our top email tips—one that we still see disappointingly few people realizing—is to change your “from” address to a real name. Instead of using a generic email (e.g. noreply@benchmarkone.com), try using your real name—“Jess from BenchmarkONE”—to create a sense of personality and trust. After all, you’re asking for trust from them by using their email address, so it’s fair to give some back.
Be Consistent With Your Schedule
Sending emails whenever it’s convenient? Good luck with that. Email marketing is far more effective when you stick to a schedule—if you’re dishing out a weekly newsletter, people will look forward to receiving it on regular days. This also helps foster loyalty and brand recognition. If you’re managing a drip campaign, think about how much time people will want to spend between emails—fire them off too quickly, and people will get annoyed; fire them off too slowly, and they’ll forget the first one.
Distinguish Your Content From Spam
One of the ways spam filters determine which emails to tuck away is by analyzing the content of the email itself. You should avoid huge file sizes, attachments, spammy backlinks, and misleading phishing phrases entirely. The less your emails resemble actual spam, the better your odds are at avoiding the spam box.
While there’s no be-all-and-end-all list of which words trigger the filter, certain risky terms, like “free,” “buy,” “prize,” or “bonus” can be enough to send your beautifully developed and well-intended message in the wrong direction.
Be Compliant and Ask Permission
You never know who’s reading your emails—so make sure you comply with all major email requirements. CAN-SPAM has been the main protector against spam in the United States since 2003, but other countries have taken things a step further. Canada’s CASL law requires express consent, usually in the form of a double opt-in agreement, in order to email people. Europe and Australia have similar laws. Even if you don’t think you’ll be penalized for breaking Canadian law, they’re good laws that lookout for the safety and comfort of end-users—and that’s who you should be caring about, too.
Balance Your Text-to-Image Ration
Image-only emails are generally considered a marketing faux pas. There are a few reasons why. From a design standpoint, text written into images doesn’t appear as legibly on all devices as actual text; from a marketing standpoint, email clients can’t identify what’s in images, so are more likely to mark them as spam; from a UX standpoint, users who can’t view images in their inbox can’t see your message at all. Using alt text is a good start, but balancing words and pictures is even better.
Use a Good Email Service Provider
A quality ESP will have your back—they can help ensure you’re compliant, make designing emails easy with drag-and-drop tools, allow for simple split testing and let you keep in touch with your fans automatically with drip emails and segmented lists.
Be Relevant
A generic or uninspiring message can cause recipients to send you right to the spam folder. Marketing automation can help you send emails that hit home with your audience and make them want to take action. With marketing automation, you’re constantly gathering information about what your audience is interested in, making it super simple to segment your list and trigger relevant emails when they hit a specific goal – like checking out a product or service on your website or filling out a form.
Test and Tweak Regularly
There’s really no magic formula for getting more of your emails into your recipients’ inboxes. This is why A/B testing is so important. Don’t be afraid to play around with different subject lines, email lengths, and image-to-text ratios, measuring results to see what works and what doesn’t. This will help you to determine what types of messages get the kind of results you’re after so you can optimize future campaigns for better performance.
Email marketing can provide an ROI of $42 for every dollar spent. But those results are only possible if your messages are successfully getting through. Our comprehensive email marketing tool, along with the tips listed above, can help you manage, execute and optimize your campaigns like a boss, improving the chances of turning those email recipients into loyal, paying customers.