Deliverability, getting your email message seen
Friday 15 May 2009
TAGS: Deliverability | Email marketing
It’s the ultimate goal of your email marketing campaign – getting your communications delivered, so they can be read and acted upon by the recipient. But what stops your email from being received, and what can you do to overcome this? Louise James, Client Services Manager at Silverbean gives you some handy hints.
So you have designed the perfect email, have a fantastic offer to communicate to your database, and know the optimum time to send this newsletter…but you need to do your utmost to ensure this communication is actually delivered and read. Deliverability is the key to any successful email campaign – so what are your main hurdles and what steps can you take to overcome these?
Permission
A pretty obvious place to start…but it’s the key to your deliverability rates – get the subscribers permission for you to communicate with them. And cover yourself completely with a double opt in process. Ideally, set the recipients expectations, just by giving them a brief indication on when they can expect to be contacted, and how often, for example;
“Join our mailing list today – and get weekly updates on all the latest promotions straight to your inbox.”
When designing your email, also factor in a prompt to get the recipient to add your email address to their “safe list” or “address book” to ensure future emails are successfully received.
Spam
It’s the dreaded word – and one you do not want attached to your email sends! Any mailer which is identified as spam by the many sophisticated anti spam programs used today, will be promptly deleted or sent straight to the user junk/spam folder and more than likely never be viewed.
Therefore you have to think carefully about the design of your email and the content you use within. Don’t use too many images and have the balance between this and the amount of text. But more importantly, do not use (or try hard to avoid using) terms in your main content and subject line, which are an instant red flag to any reputable spam spotter, including:
- Free
- You’re a Winner!
- Discount
- £ $ signs
- Over use of punctuation and exclamation marks
These are just a few examples of the words which will be filtered out by ISP’s and mail clients, so make sure you research this before embarking on your campaign. By using friendly terms, you can improve your deliverability and open rates.
Spam filters are there to stop spam – not legitimate opt-in emails. So whilst it is a headache (to put it bluntly!) as long as you are sending relevant and timely emails, to people who have specifically asked to receive this information – then you are half way there!
Bounces
So you’ve done everything right, and made sure you email is as “spam friendly” as possible, but sometimes your email cannot be delivered for a technical reason – or a bounce. There are two main “bounce” formats:
Hard bounce – where the address you are trying to send to has been deleted or does not exist. Keep your data hygienic and simply delete these emails – not matter how many times you try to send an email, despite them opting in, it’s never going to be delivered!
Soft bounce – where the email is unable to be delivered to the address due to a current technical problem, or the mailbox is full etc. Whilst your first attempt may not be successful, your second attempt may just get through – this is not a lost cause!
But the good thing about bounces (if there is one!) is that you know about them – your chosen email marketing service should offer you a report detailing why and how the email failed to deliver – and indeed SBNmail will provide you with comprehensive details on your bounce rates.
As mentioned, use these reports and remove any “unknown” email addresses (hard bounces) and keep a close eye on your soft bounces – and remove those you are continuously unable to make contact with. This not only keeps your data “hygienic” but also lowers your chances of being branded a spammer – continuously trying to send to non existent email addresses is a trait of a spammer, so avoid doing this by cleaning your data at regular intervals.
Broadcasting technology
Ensure that you are using credible software to send your emails to your database – one which is white list accredited and ideally has spam trigger testing. This will all help to achieve the main goal of deliverability – you’ve put the time and effort into designing your email…so you want it to be seen!
Silverbean has licensed an award winning email broadcast solution – SBNmail – which will offer these features, amongst a host of others, to you.
Louise James is Client Services Manager at Silverbean. If you have any questions or would like to discuss how Silverbean can help you achieve your marketing objectives through email marketing; please contact our resident email marketing services expert using one of the following.
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