Hit Inboxes — Get Your Email Delivered
by Dan Ogdon
You’ve taken the time to be sure to segment your list properly, have expertly crafted and highly targeted copy with the most relevant imagery and consistent branding in your email template. You are expecting great results and will be able to take the numbers to your boss to receive rave reviews. So, just send and watch the numbers speak for themselves right? Well, it is important to have taken all of the steps listed above, but if your message never makes it to the inbox in the first place, all your time and effort is for naught. Here are a few tips to avoid spam filtering and a little insight into the behind the scenes of email marketing deliverability.
As a Swiftpage emarketing user you have taken the most important step to reaching inboxes and not risking your entire domain name from winding up on a global blacklist. Using a third party email marketing service provider (ESP) like Swiftpage emarketing is valuable for a number of reasons including the ability to track, no send limit restrictions, Can Spam compliance and in the case of deliverability, ISP relations. ESP’s have full – time dedicated staff that monitor blacklists, have relationships with the major ISP’s, rotate sending servers and more to make sure your email hits the inbox. By using a third party, you have laid the most important foundation for delivery.
The next big issue is email authentication. When you send through your third party ESP, to your recipient it looks like it is being delivered from you – which is great. However, the receiving ISP (Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, Comcast, Cox, etc…) can see that the email is being sent from you but is actually being delivered by Swiftpage emarketing . This discrepancy can cause your emails to be junked. To combat this – create an SPF record. Next time your email is sent it will tell the ISP that it is ok for Swiftpage emarketing to be sending on your behalf – this clears you for this portion of hitting the inbox - A simple step that can have a large impact.
Next, think about your content – Here are a few tips you may not have thought about:
Who the email is delivered from: A personal email address has a higher likelihood of hitting inboxes. Spam filters don’t like info@xyzcorp.com – and neither do your recipients. You’ll see higher delivery rates and better results from your customers if you use a personal email address
Content consistency: Is your subject line a good reflection of what the actual email content is? This is important. If you are talking about Hawaiian vacations in your subject line and your email is about coffee mugs, you’ll have a higher chance of being junked.
Simple messaging: Keep your email simple, short and to the point – if it requires a lot of information to get your point across – send them to a landing page (Notice I didn’t put this entire article in the email). A filter looks at your template and if it gives them a headache to read technically, you may be junked.
Simple linking: You will likely be linking to something with your email. Think about the length and complexity of the link - remember spam filters don’t like complicated things.If you have to use a long URL, use a service like tinyURL.com to compress it and use the tiny URL link instead of your long complicated link. Also, don’t use FTP links – an immediate junk trigger – stick to http or https.
Take these steps into consideration before you send your next email blast. Note deliverability and open rates of your last blast and compare them to the one you are about to send – we bet you’ll see a boost.
