Two Reasons To Focus On Email Deliverability

Here’s two big reasons why email deliverability should definitely be on your radar:

Reason #1: You actually want people to read your emails.

I know, this one is kind of a no brainer. Of course you want people to read your emails! But, there’s a whole lot that has to occur to make that happen. A big part of getting eyes on your emails has to do with email deliverability.  Meaning, getting the email to their primary inbox.

Unless you pay careful attention to the things that impact your deliverability, and yes there are many, the basic goal of getting people to read your emails becomes extremely challenging to say the least.

So what are several factors that affect whether or not you have good email deliverability?

• Your email reputation.

Every email sender has an email reputation or sender score This score is generated by Internet Service Providers like Comcast and Cox, and mailbox providers like Gmail and Yahoo. The score is determined by a number of factors, like your email volume (how many emails you send), your complaint rates, your bounce rates (and ESP's like Infusionsoft and ActiveCampaign do NOT catch every bounce), how often you land in the spam folder, how many dormant (inactive/old addresses) you have, and many more.

If your reputation score is low, that could prevent your emails from landing in the inbox.

Fortunately, there are ways you can prevent hitting the spam or promotions folder, but it takes work!

Setting clear expectations about what you will be sending to your subscribers and sticking to it, sending email with content relevant to your subscribers (give them what they want), and only marketing to those that have requested it from you directly (not buying email lists or using JV lists) is a real good start. Respect your subscribers’ inbox as if it was your own is essential to keeping your deliverability strong. Remember, you can't sell anything to people who do not read your content!

Two tools to look at to help manage your email reputation are Sender Score from Return Path and MXtoolbox. Now just using these won't solve your problems with deliverability, but they will give you a good idea of problems that are occurring.

Reason #2: Nobody wants to be labeled a “spammer.”

I don’t recall anyone waking up in the morning and saying

“You know what I want to do today???
I want to send spammy emails.”

Unfortunately, many people send spam or engage in spammy behaviors without even knowing they are doing it.

So why is not sending spammy emails so important? If people indicate your messages are spam, that can certainly cause your deliverability to take a dip. When that happens, any future emails you send to other subscribers at the same email inbox provider (such as gmail or yahoo) will have an increased chance of ending up in the spam folder as well.

If you’re not sure if you’re sending spam, the following would be a pretty good indicator.

You send email content that doesn’t align with what your subscribers expect to receive from you. (completely going against what we said earlier)

The majority of your email content is too promotional. (People want to be led to a decision, not have promos sent to them every day over the course of 3 weeks)

Here are two tips to help you avoid sending spammy messages.

Provide value

Stick to the expectations you set when they requested information from you on opt-in

But Evan, I send regular, relevant content to my subscribers?

Sometimes, despite your best efforts, it's not your fault someone thinks your email is spam. People may realize that what you offer isn't what they need, or they came to the decision that just they just don't want to receive your emails anymore. We think they would just hit the unsubscribe that you have purposely buried or hidden in the bottom of the email, but sometimes they don't realize it is there and flag emails as spam to prevent your emails from clogging your inbox. They don't do it maliciously to harm you, they just do what they need to do to make sure they receive relevant content in their inbox.

Because of this it is important to ensure that the unsubscribe button is easy to find in your email (that means stop burying the unsubscribe link). You may also consider including some copy that tells people that if they no longer wish to receive your emails, they should unsubscribe from your and make it easy for them to do so.

One of our favorite strategies is the campaign kill button.  It stops the current campaign but, keeps them on your regular list thereby, helping to both track engagement and segment at the same time.  Building on Fundamentals, on the thank you page of the kill button, invite them to engage in a different product or service.

Remember, it is not the size of your list, it is how engaged it is. Get the unengaged out, keeping them will only hurt your deliverability.

For people who do want to receive your emails, ask them to add your “From Address” to their contact list. You can even go as far as directing them to add you to their contact list on your thank page. Or, you can even ask them to drag your email from the promotions tab to primary tab in gmail. Being added to a contact list and doing these other steps helps improve your email reputation score, which in turn means more of your emails will get routed to the inbox instead of the spam folder. This is commonly known as whitelisting your email. 

Attaining High Email Deliverability

Email deliverability needs to be a key focus of any marketing plan! It takes focus and diligence, it is not set it and forget it and your ESP won't deal with it for you.

To borrow an idea from Zig Ziglar, ”People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing, that’s why we recommend it daily.”

What we say is, “Your email list doesn’t stay clean and engaged, that’s why we recommend cleaning it monthly.” Not as eloquent but has the same meaning.

Make email deliverability a focus in your business!

If you need help with your email deliverability, schedule a no obligation consultation here