3 Tips to Ensure Email Deliverability

Introduction

As an email marketer, you invest a great deal of time each week producing emails for your subscribers, but if your delivery rate is poor, all of that effort goes to waste. If those emails fall in the spam boxes of your potential consumers, you have little chance of generating a transaction or establishing a relationship with them.

3 Tips to Ensure Email Deliverability

Here are three tips to ensure your emails reach your subscribers’ inboxes.

Use a Trustworthy Auto-Responder Service

Utilizing a trusted autoresponder provider is the most effective way to prevent spam folders. Companies such as Aweber, Mail Chimp, and Get Response work diligently to ensure that they are white-listed by major Internet Service Providers and email providers such as Gmail. If you want a cheaper email provider alternative, you can check out Sendiio.

The majority of auto responder firms list their delivery statistics.

In addition, the good ones will ensure that your emails comply with regulations and keep you out of trouble.

Establish and fulfill expectations.

In addition to offering excellent materials your subscribers seek, the best approach is to set expectations from the outset. Inform your subscribers in advance of the timing and frequency of your email communications. Doing so increases your chances of remaining in their inboxes since they are likely to open your emails.

Use “foreshadowing” in your messages. Here are a few examples of how others use foreshadowing:

• New Programs – The hosts announce the following segment just before the commercial break. The intention is to captivate the audience enough to watch the entire commercial before moving on to the next portion. 
• Magazines – Magazines show images, headlines, or short bullets of the following month’s issue. Again, the goal is to pique readers’ interest and get them to buy the next issue or, even better, get a subscription.

Foreshadowing works like a charm. You can adapt a similar approach to your email marketing. Give your subscribers a preview of what’s in your next email. Be intentionally unclear, yet capture their interest.

For instance, if you’re discussing the significance of email marketing and your next email will be about writing subject lines for a greater open rate, you may write: “Keep an eye out for Friday’s email. We will discuss the most crucial aspect of email marketing. Nothing else matters if you don’t get this properly.”

Another way to do this is using the P.S section of your message. You can describe what they may expect to see in the following email. Make sure to keep your content concise and visual.

You may even take a step further and get your subscribers to open your previous email. For example, you can begin your email referencing something you discussed in your last email, then transition into the current topic and conclude with a teaser for what’s to come. It works particularly well if you’re composing email series on a linked subject.

You don’t need to utilize foreshadowing in every email. Where appropriate, sprinkle it throughout the text or in the subject line of your subsequent email. For example, consider using the phrase “as promised.” Even those who missed your last email may be intrigued enough to open this one.

Try it out and observe whether your open rates improve and, more importantly, if your subscribers get more involved. 

After establishing these expectations, make every effort to meet them. Occasionally, things do take place. Generally, you should strive to follow your promises and send your emails when your readers anticipate them.

Again, setting a regular schedule of your emails will increase your open rates and, thus, your deliverability.

Regularly sanitize your list.

Another helpful practice is to organize your list regularly. If subscribers haven’t opened your emails in the past six months, likely, they are no longer interested in your offerings. There is no point keeping sending emails to them.

Check your autoresponder’s manual or help files to determine how to delete anyone who hasn’t opened your email in the past six months. If this terrifies you, or if you operate a seasonal business, begin by eliminating everybody who hasn’t viewed your emails in the past year. If that is still uncomfortable, you can try one thing before cleaning your list: re-engaging them. There are ways to re-engage your idle subscribers, but it’s not covered here. If re-engaging doesn’t work, you can delete them from your list. 

Final Thoughts

Following these guidelines and monitoring email deliverability, in general, will ensure that your emails get received by your subscribers, which is the objective of email marketing, right?