A hot topic on the subject of email marketing is how to keep your company’s emails out of your prospect’s junk folder. It’s one of the most complicated parts of email marketing which causes a high rate of failure. Here are some steps to get your email read and get it where it belongs — the inbox.
Send Emails in Batches
It may be easier to send an email to an entire list, but this is not an effective practice. Spam detectors are looking for companies using mass emails. Sending out smaller batches minimizes the risk of email providers (Google, MSN, and Yahoo!) getting spam complaints bundled together at one time. Batch the lists when sending more than 2,000 emails because this is the maximum that should be sent per hour. Many paid email marketing systems will do this automatically.
Clean and Update Email Lists
When email providers see a mailing list with a lot of bad accounts (i.e. ones that don’t exist, have been disabled or have a full inbox), they penalize the sender. This increases the likelihood that company emails will go into to the junk folder. Surprisingly, some estimate that US consumers change their email account every six months. This means a lot of updating, but it is a necessary practice to prevent from being labeled a spam provider.
Include a Clear Unsubscribe Link
Providing subscribers an opportunity to unsubscribe from a mailing list is not only a best practice, it is a legal requirement. Providing an unsubscribe link means that readers are less likely to jump straight to marking an email as spam. The top criteria for ending up in junk folders is number of spam complaints, so these must be avoided.
Become a Contact
Seize every opportunity to encourage those on an email list to add the company as a contact (sometimes called white listing) because those emails will always go to the inbox. Make sure the email comes from a real person not info@yourcompany.com. The best times to encourage this are in the email sign-up confirmation, on the confirmation page, and during customer service transactions. For example, write that “in order to ensure that you continue to receive quality information you requested from us, please add us to your contact list.”
Don’t Use Big Images
Sending an email with only images is a bad idea. Spam filters are on the hunt for image-based files because they often contain words that would normally get caught in the spam filters. Since they can’t read the words on an image, they play it safe and assume it’s spam. Make sure all emails contain real text for the filters to read, so they can know the email is safe and pass it on. Including small images an email marketing copy which can be seen on mobile devices is encouraged; it’s the image-only emails that are a problem.
Avoid Certain “Spam” Language
Spam reads like spam. Some of the most common words in junk folder emails are Vi***a, free, drugs, p**n, and guaranteed winner. Additionally, don’t use ALL CAPS, colored fonts, or multiple exclamation marks. Many email marketing solutions check the “spam score” of an email before it is sent.
Don’t Buy a List
Sending a promotional email to someone you’ve never had contact with before is illegal according to many digital laws, so buying an email marketing list is not suggested. Buying a list will also increase the chance that people will report the message as spam.
How has your company been successful when it comes time to get your email read?
Republished by permission. Original here.
Email Photo via Shutterstock
Jaynorth
Informative post, sometimes useful email gets into trash, due to time constraint & excess work load leads to such failure. But above ways suggested can help in getting hold of useful mails, with this help better performance is expected.
Aira Bongco
You really have to qualify them so that you don’t end up spamming them. It also helps to have a strong brand so that your subscribers can easily remember your name.