Is Your Email Marketing Being Flagged as Spam?
A total of 2,364,534 emails are sent across the internet in just 1 second. And of them, 67% are spam! To understand the importance of a correct email marketing campaign you do not need to read any statistics.
At any time of the day you are using your email. To write a friend, to apply a job offer, to respond a customer or to request information. If you want to be a successful email marketer, you have to make sure that your messages are opened by recipients without ending up in the trash (or even worse, being flagged as SPAM).
How can you accomplish this mission with email marketing?
Here are some suggestions you can apply to your next email marketing campaign.
1. Use a Reputable Service
Deliverability is an important metric you should pay attention when analyzing the results of your email marketing campaign.
You want to make sure to increase as much as possible the messages that actually get to destination, in relation to the number of emails sent.
If you think about it, that’s a parameter that is affected both from the ESP (email service provider) and you (the business).
It’s therefore important to invest on a great autoresponder (for example, GetResponse has 99% email deliverability) and make sure to keep increasing your online reputation.
You need to work on creating a clear policy which respect your subscribers and being sure to build your mailing list with a double opt-in.
It’s also suggested to have a clear unsubscribe process that gives users the chance to quit your newsletter right away.
Maintaining your mailing list as clean as possible is a basic point to keep a top deliverability, which means enhancing your reputation as a sender and respecting the CAN-SPAM act.
2. Solve a Problem
If you had the certainty that a newsletter service could help you solve at least one of your problems, would you like to subscribe?
And if the title of the message landing in your email would already provide part of the answer to a problem you’re trying to solve, would you be tempted to open it?
A good example of how a newsletter that provides answers and information is certainly opened, is given by the services offered by Quibb.
Quibb is a professional network that allows people to share relevant information about their work. The purpose of the website is to target their subscribers on the arguments and news of the day that best meet their professional needs.
Do you know what is the open rate of the emails coming from Quibb?
It varies from 50 up to 70 percent!
It an incredibly high result if you think that the average opening rate of an email is about 25.6%, according to a study by the Direct Marketing Association.
3. Help Your Subscribers to Make or Save Money
Groupon has become really popular thanks to the possibility offered to its customers (registered users), to access daily discounted gift certificates and vouchers usable at local or national companies.
Revolutionizing the dynamics of traditional sales, Groupon has managed to bring significant benefits to its customers. These benefits translate into considerable savings on every purchase made.
What does Groupon to announce the availability of a good discount to its users?
It makes use of a mailing list, of course!
The recipients of these commercial messages want to open them right away, intrigued by interesting opportunities offered.
The title of your email must contain, in just forty characters, the message you want to convey to your subscribers: “Free Shipping”, “Discount” or “Advantage” are among the terms used to indicate unequivocally the opportunity that you want to offer your leads.
But pay attention to draw the longbow, you want to keep your spam score as low as possible. So avoid an excessive use of the term “FREE” in the subject of your emails or uppercase words.
To improve your spam score, visit this list of terms by SpamAssasin and be sure to not use them in your email marketing campaigns.
Remember to run A/B tests. In some cases, the “free shipping” offer can be much more attractive to a percentage discount on the product purchased.
For some customers, however, saving just a few dollars can make a difference!
If you want to keep your target audience engaged, you absolutely need to identify the right offer that satisfy the real needs of your users.
4. Deliver Great Content
You never stop learning.
This motto is always present in the choices you make every day, even if you are not aware.
To hone your professional knowledge, for example, you attend courses, conferences and seminars, read books and you do everything to stay up to date. Right?
Think how it could be helpful to have the opportunity to receive an email each week with updates and information that can help improve yourself or your professional life to be more competitive and successful.
Emails that provide useful information, giving advice and practical suggestions, have an open rate of 40% more than those that are focused solely on the sale of a product!
Well, you should aim to deliver just relevant and interesting content to your subscribers and don’t think to just sell your products or services.
5. Strive to Be a Good Entertainer
Some well structured emails, other than text, contain also some element of entertainment such as a video or an image.
This helps make the reading more enjoyable, stimulating unconsciously the possible sale.
It is a trend that is growing stronger and that opens up new developments for the user experience when shopping online.
According to Forrester Research, adding a media in an email increases the click of visitors of two/three times.
Is it therefore possible to create a message that knows how to entertain the reader, at the same time helps him make or save money and provide information to solve a problem?
Well, most of the emails only focus on one of these topics.
My advice? Take a look at the last emails you sent to your subscribers and then make a note of how many of these subjects you covered.
If you have not used any, then you should seriously reconsider your approach to the audience you are targeting.
Remember, good communication is the foundation of every successful business.
What do you think?
Are you running a successful newsletter?
Please share your tips or experience in the comments below, thanks!
Bottom Image courtesy of photostock at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Erik Emanuelli
Erik is a professional blogger and freelance writer. He loves to skydive and work on his NoPassiveIncome blog (but not at the same time).
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- Email Marketing: How to Avoid Being Flagged as SPAM - January 17, 2015
