How to Stay In the Inbox and Out of the Spam Folder Posted on June 9, 2014June 1, 2016 by Erin Posey Ready to send a bulk email to your list? Well, before you press send, we need to have “the talk.” The internet is actually just like high school. Your reputation always precedes you – and it means everything. Sure, you may be a straight-A student taking the right extracurriculars. But as soon as you sit at the wrong lunch table or go to the wrong party, your status takes a hit. It doesn’t take long for crummy associations to stick, damaging your sterling reputation for the rest of your high school career. It’s not always fair, but that’s how it works. Spam filters are like that, too. You may have the best intention of sending helpful, informative correspondence to your contacts. But if it starts to resemble the profile of spam in anyway (even accidentally), your email reputation takes a hit. Here’s How Email Works Your email resides on an email server. For example, if you have a gmail email address, then your email resides on gmail’s servers. When you send an email, your email server delivers your message to the recipient’s email server. It is the recipient’s email server that decides whether to deliver the email to their inbox, stick it in the junk folder, or not even deliver it at all. Email servers are picky – only about 80% of email actually makes it to the inbox. Now, when you send one-off emails from your personal or business email account, they will most likely make it to the inbox. It becomes more tricky when you send a single email to multiple contacts, such as an update to your list of customers. Email servers take a closer look at bulk email, because spammers send in bulk. It’s back to high school – uncool by association. When you send email in any volume, it becomes more difficult to get 100% into the inbox. Building Your Sender Reputation As you send email, you will build an online reputation for the quality of your email. Email service providers track everything when you send email: How many of your emails bounce, meaning they cannot be delivered because the email address is faulty or does not exist. How many recipients complain about spam How many recipients open your email How many recipients click a link in your email How many recipients quickly delete your email Red flags such as a high bounce rate or a high spam complaint rate will make you resemble a spammer, damaging your reputation and causing the email service providers route your email right to the spam folder. Getting a Bad Rep Just like in high school, problems usually start with the company you keep. In this case, that’s your contact list. In an ideal world, your email list is made up of people who share interest in your business and have signed up, or opted-in, to receive email from you. Because opt-ins want to hear from you, they will open your emails and won’t flag you as spam – keeping your sender reputation clean as a whistle. Unfortunately, lists can expire over time. Contacts who opted-in a long time ago may have had a change of heart and no longer open your emails, decreasing your open rates. Older email addresses may not exist anymore (especially if you have a list of business emails that tend to turnover more often) affecting your bounce rate. Also, if you don’t stay in touch frequently, old contacts may be wondering, “how do I know you?” and send you into the spam folder. Cleaning Up Your Reputation Cleaning up your sender reputation is as easy as keeping a clean email list. After all, what is the point of sending out lots of email to a huge list if no one reads it, or it doesn’t even reach the inbox? Remove people from your list who have not opened an email from you in a while. Send a re-engagement email to old contacts, re-opting them into your list to decrease spam complaints. Remove any bad or faulty email addresses from your list. Trim down your list to your best contacts, and you’ll see a boost in your engagement rate, getting more email delivered to the inbox and keeping your sender reputation clean.
Who’s it From? Five Questions to Ask to Increase Email Opens. Posted on May 19, 2014July 16, 2021 by Jessica Lunk When an email hits an inbox, there are two elements that are integral to the email being opened: 1. A compelling subject line. 2. A trustworthy from address. Subject lines get a lot of attention in the world of digital marketing, but the “from” field is just as important in getting your marketing email from “sent” to “opened.” Have you ever received an email that looked like a garbled mess of letters and numbers, or a suspicious sounding domain? A from address like that automatically signals to you, “SPAM” and “DELETE.” If you want to stay out of the virtual trash bin, it’s worth taking a few moments to ask yourself five important questions about your from address before launching your next marketing email. Is the From Name Friendly? Every email address has a human-friendly name that lets the recipient know who the email is from, like “ABC Company” or “Jane Smith.” While this may seem like a no-brainer, it’s worth taking a minute to check the name associated with your email address. For example, if all of your prospecting emails come from a sales person’s email address, using their name instead of your company name might be a friendlier way to reach potential customers. Is the From Address Familiar? Every email address is made up of a username and a domain name: user@domain.extension. This is the format we expect, and a garbled username or uncommon extension is all it takes set of our internal “spam” alarm. Keep your from address clean, simple and legit. “firstname.lastname@companyurl” always works, as does something specific like “deals@companyurl” or “updates@companyurl.” Is the From Address Professional? If you’re still sending email from an @yahoo.com, @gmail.com or @aol.com email address, it’s time to think about investing in your own domain. Any reputable business should have their own domain name and business email, and it isn’t difficult to secure one. Check out these resources if you need to purchase your own domain: GoDaddy BlueHost 1&1 Is the From Address DMARC Compatible? Not only does owning your own domain increase your credibility, but now it may be essential for getting your emails to reach prospect and customer inboxes. DMARC stands for “Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance” and is a policy that is being implemented globally on the good ol’ world wide web to reduce spam and phishing schemes. In order to reduce spam and email abuse, soon all the major ISPs (internet service providers) will stop delivering emails from aol.com, yahoo.com, gmail.com and other free domain email addresses unless they are sent directly from an AOL, Yahoo, or Gmail account. This means that if you send emails through an email marketing tool, those emails will be blocked or bounced by most major ISPs, like Gmail or Outlook.com. Is the From Address Recognizable? When sending email marketing messages, you want to be recognizable and known. That’s why opting prospects in to your email list is important. This confirms that your prospects want to hear from you and will engage with your emails, increasing your overall email deliverability. Does your From Address shout, “Open Me, I’m Important!” or does it scream, “Proceed with Caution!”? It’s worth taking a second glance to make sure that your emails are delivered and opened.