Email deliverability is a crucial component of email marketing. When your emails end up in the spam folder, it negatively affects engagement, brand reputation, and ROI.
Achieving high email deliverability requires a number of things, including an engaged audience, budget-friendly email software and accurate data. Learn how to avoid common email deliverability mistakes and implement best practices for maximum results.
1. Know Your Audience
A high email delivery rate is a cornerstone of successful marketing, and it’s one of the most important things to focus on when developing your email marketing strategy. After all, if your emails aren’t reaching subscribers in their inboxes, they won’t be able to open, click, or convert. This is why it’s essential to know your audience and how to best reach them with your content.
Defining your target audience is the first step to creating engaging, relevant email content. By identifying your audience’s needs and wants, you can create more effective email campaigns that will drive engagement and conversions. One of the best ways to learn more about your audience is to create buyer personas, which are semi-fictional representations of your ideal customers based on market research and real data from existing customer behavior.
When you have a clear understanding of your audience, you can also better identify potential new customers and how to approach them. For example, if your audience is comprised of home decorators who love DIY projects, you can promote new products and offers that speak to their passions. Similarly, if your audience is concerned with environmental issues, you can educate them on the benefits of using organic products or green cleaning services.
By taking the time to understand your audience, you can be sure that your messages are both story-driven and centered around their problems and interests. This will help to keep your email marketing relevant and relatable, which will lead to higher open rates and CTRs. And it will ultimately contribute to your email deliverability, as well. A good sender reputation is key to ensuring that your emails get to your subscribers in their inboxes and not the spam folder.
2. Invest in Email Marketing Software
Email deliverability is a crucial metric that should be a mainstay of your marketing strategy. Boosting your sender reputation, optimizing your content, and ensuring your lists are clean all have an impact on your overall inbox placement rates. Inbox placement is a critical step in building a lasting relationship with your subscribers.
A low inbox placement rate can mean your emails end up in the spam folder, which can cause subscribers to unsubscribe. Alternatively, they may simply disregard your messages. Regardless, you will be unable to reach your subscribers, and you won’t be able to cultivate the trust and loyalty that can result from frequent, relevant communication.
Your email deliverability score, which is a measure of your reputation with mailbox providers like Gmail, is calculated by a complex algorithm that takes into account a number of factors. This is a big reason why it’s so important to invest in a trusted email marketing software provider, like SendinBlue, that provides robust deliverability monitoring.
Investing in an email marketing solution can also give you insights into your subscriber list so that you can best manage it and maintain high engagement. With this data, you can tailor your messages to better suit your audience and offer them content that aligns with their interests. This translates into higher engagement rates, increased brand recognition, and more sales.
In addition, a dedicated IP through an email marketing solution gives you complete responsibility for your deliverability rate and won’t risk damage from another sender’s poor performance like a shared IP address might. It is an excellent investment that will pay off down the road.
3. Segment Your List
Email is an incredibly effective marketing tool, but only when you send relevant messages to your subscribers. Using generic email campaigns can be damaging to your brand reputation and hurt your email deliverability. To improve your results, consider how you can better manage your email list and segmentation.
There are many ways to segment an email list, and the best way to do so will depend on your business needs and available data. For example, if you have purchase history, you can create segments to target people who are interested in specific product categories. A clothing store, for instance, can use this data to send emails about new arrivals that are specifically relevant to their audience.
Another useful way to segment an email list is by location. This is a good option for businesses that have multiple locations or an international audience, as it will allow you to tailor content to their specific needs. For example, if you have customers in different countries, you can send them emails about local promotions or events that are happening near them.
You can also use behavioral data to segment your audience, such as the frequency of their opens and clicks. This can help you identify the most engaged groups of your audience, and then craft content that is most likely to convert them.
To get the most out of your email list, you should perform regular data cleansing and verification. This will reduce the number of invalid addresses in your database, which can negatively affect your email deliverability. A company like DealSignal can automate this process for you, and ensure that your contact lists are always accurate.
4. Avoid Spam Trigger Words
It would be a shame for your email marketing efforts to get caught in the spam folder before your recipients even have a chance to open it. There are a variety of things that influence deliverability, including your email template, audience targeting and email list maintenance. However, one of the biggest factors is your choice of words. Avoiding the most common spam trigger words in your subject lines and content can make all the difference in ensuring that your emails reach the inbox.
Spam trigger words are often used to create a sense of urgency or to promote a product or service. They can also include false promises or exaggerated claims. For example, phrases like “act now” and “limited time offer” can trigger spam filters. Using these words can quickly cause your message to be flagged and sent to junk.
To avoid getting caught by spam filtering programs, it is important to use the right email marketing terminology. This includes avoiding overused words such as “free,” “urgent” and “deposit.” It is also important to be aware of the types of words that spammers commonly use.
As email marketing practices evolve, spam filters change and new words are added to the spam trigger list. This means that it is crucial to keep up with the latest developments in email marketing and stay updated on the current spam trigger words.
As your knowledge of email marketing grows, it will become easier to maintain email deliverability and ensure that your messages reach the inbox. Keeping your email list clean, staying on top of new industry trends and learning about the most common spam trigger words will all help to improve your overall sender reputation and increase email delivery rates.
5. Keep Your Emails Short
With over 306 billion emails sent and received every day, the competition for inbox placement is fierce. Many marketers rely on email to generate leads and boost sales, but these results are only possible if your message is delivered. The best way to ensure that your emails make it into the inbox is by keeping your messages short and to the point.
People have shorter attention spans than ever, and your subscribers don’t have the time or energy to read long, drawn-out emails. By writing emails that are easy to digest, you can increase the chances that your readers will read through all of your content and take action.
Keeping your emails short requires practice, but it can be an effective way to maintain interest and encourage your readers to follow through on any call-to-action that you may include in your message. Ideally, you should try to keep your emails to less than 80 words in length.
When you’re writing your email, it’s important to start off with a brief salutation that introduces the purpose of your message. However, it’s equally important to get straight to the point once you’ve begun your email.
Many marketers use phrases like FREE, ACT NOW, and CLICK HERE in their subject lines and in their body copy, but these keywords are often viewed as spam triggers by spam filters. In addition, long, winding sentences and paragraphs can quickly detract from the effectiveness of your message.
For best deliverability, it’s also crucial to clean your list regularly. This means removing any email addresses that have been reported as spammers, and deleting all hard bounces (emails that are undeliverable because the email address is no longer active). This will not only help your deliverability, but it will also keep your readers happy by ensuring that they don’t receive irrelevant or promotional emails.