How Are You Sending Your Emails?
These days, new products out there for marketers claim to increase inbox placement by x% or increase traffic by some percentage. More often than not, the methods for achieving these kinds of results are less than honest and involve techniques such as hiding one’s identity or re-launching a new product under a different brand each month. It might make you mad that marketers get away with practices like this, or it might spark your curiosity as to whether or not they actually work. These quick-fix methods aren’t sustainable for a trustworthy business. They don’t demonstrate integrity in your business practices, and more importantly they don’t build trust with your clients.
You must ask yourself, “What kind of a foundation am I building with my marketing practices? Am I building them with integrity?” Sending mail to your clients and prospects the right way will allow you to create longer-lasting relationships and establish more profitable relationships with your clients and prospects.
Ready, set, go?
The immediate goal is to send honest messaging to prospects and clients. Easy – just start sending mail without half-truths or lies in it, right? Not so fast… There’s more to honest and effective email marketing than just keeping the content of your messages on the up-and-up. The integrity you want to instill in your business should be at the core of your marketing practices.
A few email marketing basics: Start with the actual message you are sending. Who are you? Where are you sending from? It’s important to keep your From Address consistent so the recipient of your email will be able to easily recognize your messages, be more likely to open them, and less likely to trash them.
Now examine the content of your message. Keep in mind that when emailing your list that you don’t want to talk at them if they aren’t interested. Keep it real with conversational language, as if you’re speaking to a friend. Construct your messages so that they feel personal rather than generic. This will encourage people to read what you have to say and even respond to you. Stay away from strange spacing in your words and special characters; instead provide relevant, relatable content to create a deep connection with your readers and a better experience for your clients and prospects.
Don’t stop there, though: If you get a response to one of your emails, take the time to answer it. ESPs will notice this interaction and improve your email deliverability rates overall. This two-way dialogue also helps you build longer-lasting relationships.
Don’t Get Stuck in the Fast Lane to the Spam Box
Getting your messaging down is crucial when sending bulk messages, but to prevent your message from reaching the spam box instead the inbox, look out for these traps before you press send. So what else is out there threatening your deliverability rates? One of the traps is to share links or copy that are already considered to have spam content. If you do, you will be flagged and judged side-by-side with other users using the same methods or copy as you. So if you are sharing links (also sometimes called backlinks) with other sites, make sure those sites are producing high-quality content and doing an impeccable job of managing their lists. The second spam trap is to send an email with attachments: Except in rare cases, this will fast track you straight to the spam box. Instead, provide a link with anchor text to the content that would have been in your attachment.
There are many other things to keep an eye out for when prepping an email for delivery. The list is extensive, varying from email length to usage of buzzwords to swipe copy affiliate/JV marketing to making sure everything is in line with your domain and IP address. Getting your email ready for delivery doesn’t have to be a hard process, and once you know how to send an email the right way, you’ll be building honest marketing practices in no time.
Before you start sending your emails, download your free copy of The Marketer’s Deliverability Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide to Successful Email Deliverability to learn everything you need to know to start building longer-lasting and more profitable relationships with your prospects and clients.
