Ever send an email and it not reach the other end?
Email is at the heart of conversions. If your BDR or Marketing or Sales email hits the ‘other’ inbox, it doesnt’ matter how much money you’ve spent to reach the end user. You have to treat email with respect regardless of your outbound motion of ABM/ABX, DemandGen, or BDR outreach.
Let me share a few of my lessons learned as the first CMO of ReturnPath (now Validity) in email deliverability.
- Segmentation and Personalization: Rather than sending the same message to a large list, segment your audience based on their interests, behavior, or demographics. Personalize the emails as much as possible. This increases engagement, which in turn can improve your sender reputation.
- Warm-up Your Email Accounts: If you’re using new email accounts for sending, start with a low volume of emails and gradually increase the number over time. This helps in building a positive sending reputation with ISPs (Internet Service Providers). Check to see if you are using a dedicated IP address or shared email address.
- Use Reputable Email Sending Services: Reputable email sending services have mechanisms in place to help maintain your sending reputation. They can provide insights into your email campaigns and help you stay compliant with best practices. Your Marketing Automation provider should be one of those reliable infrastructure providers.
- Monitor Your Sender Reputation: Tools and services are available that allow you to monitor your sender score or reputation. This score influences whether your emails will be delivered to the inbox or spam folder. Keeping an eye on this can help you take corrective actions if needed.
- Adhere to Anti-Spam Laws: Ensure your emails comply with anti-spam laws like CAN-SPAM, GDPR, and others relevant to your audience’s location. This includes having a clear way for recipients to unsubscribe from your emails. This becomes a sharper issue in regions outside the US, although even within the US, data privacy is getting tighter.
- Regularly Clean Your Email List: Remove unengaged subscribers from your list regularly. Sending emails to engaged users improves your engagement rate, which is a positive signal to email service providers. Can’t emphasize this enough. If you also have spam trap emails in your system, you’ll get extra penalized here. Study those bounces!
- Optimize Email Frequency: Sending too many emails can lead to subscriber fatigue and increase the chances of being marked as spam. Find the right balance in your email frequency that keeps subscribers engaged without overwhelming them.
- Engagement is Key: Encourage replies and interactions from your recipients. Email services consider engagement when determining your sender reputation. A higher engagement rate can positively impact your ability to reach inboxes.
- Avoid Spam Triggers: Certain words, phrases, and formatting choices can trigger spam filters. Be mindful of your email content and design to avoid these triggers. Your Demand Generation person or campaigns lead should be familiar with this.
- Feedback Loops and Whitelisting: Set up feedback loops with ISPs to get notified when recipients mark your email as spam. Additionally, encourage your subscribers to whitelist your email address.
- Test and Learn: Continuously test different aspects of your email campaigns, including subject lines, content, send times, and more. Use the insights gained to optimize future sends.
- Check your email settings. SPF, DKIM, DMARC, MX Records, for proper configuration.
Remember, maintaining a good sending reputation takes continuous effort. By following these practices, you can improve your email deliverability and reduce the risk of restrictions or being flagged for high-volume sends.