How to Make Sure Your Emails are Actually Getting Through
Businesses typically put a great deal of effort into writing their subject lines and their email content. However, they often fail to incorporate strategies that will keep them out of spam folders. That’s a huge mistake, since people won’t see your marketing messages if they’re wasting away in spam land. Fortunately, there are some easy tips you can use to stay out of spam folders.
Make it Easy to Opt-Out
If people can’t opt-out of your list easily, they will mark your messages as spam. If enough people mark your messages as spam, your address will get blacklisted. Thus, as painful as it may be to lose subscribers, you need to have a clear way for people to opt-out of your list. Include an opt-out link in all of your emails. Also, remove people who opt-out immediately.
Avoid “Spammy” Words and Phrases
Words and phrases like “free,” “increase sales,” and “info you requested” are all examples of spam triggers. The best way to find spam triggers is to open up your own spam folder. Take a look at the subject lines. Avoid using the words in those subject lines so you can make it to people’s inboxes.
Clean Up Your List
If you have a high bounce rate, your email address will get penalized. For example, let’s say you have an email list with 1,000 addresses. Half of those addresses are Gmail accounts that aren’t in use anymore, but you keep sending the emails to those addresses anyway. Gmail will actually penalize you for sending so many emails to bad accounts. You can avoid this problem by checking your analytics. Look at your bounce rates and delete bad addresses.
Use a Professional Email Address
If you use a free email service provider such as Yahoo! or Gmail, you are more likely to end up in spam folders. If you have a professional email address that contains your domain name, you will have a better chance of getting past the filters.
Ask People to Add You
If people add you to their address books, your email will make it through the spam filter every time. Remind subscribers to add you to their address books so they can continue to receive your helpful messages.
Don’t Let Your Subscribers Forget You
If you only send emails every month or two, your subscribers might forget about you and your list. That means they might hit the “spam” button when they see your email come through. Thus, it’s important that you send emails on a regular basis. That doesn’t mean you should send multiple emails each day, but you need to have a nice pattern in place so you can stay on people’s minds.
Choose Your Email Service Provider Wisely
Instead of just sending messages from your own account, choose an email service provider like AWeber. Service providers build their reputations on getting emails delivered. While they can’t guarantee a 100% deliverability rate, they can help you get your emails into inboxes.
Test Your Emails
You should always test your emails before you send them to your list. First, run a spam check with your email service provider. Once you run the check, the program will tell you how likely it is that your email will be flagged as spam. Continue making changes and re-checking the email until it passes the program’s filter.
Then, send your email to your private email address. If it makes it into your inbox, there’s a good chance it will make it into your subscribers’ inboxes.
Email marketing is a great way to connect with costumers and make sales. Before you can accomplish those goals though, people have to see your emails. Follow these tips and you will be one step closer to having a successful campaign.
