One out six email recipients does not receive email messages due to spam filters (by Marketing Sherpa). This results in a low response rate and disappointing revenue.

If just 10 percent of your contacts receive your emails and out of which only 2 percent respond, what would be your conversion rate?

You need to come out of this. First ask yourself “How to ensure that your email campaigns are not blocked?” Don’t have an answer?

Here are 8 tactics to help kick off successful Email marketing campaigns

1. Check your IP address and sender reputation

The mailbox providers rate the senders based on the IP address and the sender reputation. The Internet Service Providers (ISP) maintain records of all emails sent from a particular IP address. You can succeed in maintaining a positive and strong history of your IP address by sending relevant and petitioned emails. By doing this, you gain credibility with which your email reaching the inbox of your recipient increases significantly. Avoid risk of mailing too frequent and having unhygienic list. These might lead to decrease open rates, and your IP address scores might get thrashed to the floor blocking your emails to enter inbox of any ISP.

2. Reliability of the list

If you are one of those organizations who take utmost care in getting a fresh up-to-date list, Hold On! Before you start opting for a list, you ought to consider many aspects. People respond to the mails they subscribed for and they usually ignore other mails. So, remember to check for lists which have the records procured from reliable and credible sources. Sending unsolicited emails is definitely a serious offense. Likewise, sending emails to dead and inactive emails addresses might be troublesome to the reputation of your IP address. The loss might be as big as losing access to the inbox. So, when you opt for a mailing list, make sure of aspects like the last time the list is updated, deliverability rates, etc.

If you have an in-built list, and aiming to grow it, do it organically through sign up forms.

3. Take care of the Content Issues

The reason for deliverability might not be only due to the IP address and the list it might also be due to content related issues of the mail. Content covers a lot of areas of aspects of the message. Take your email through many tests like

• Spam words
• Credibility of links in your mail
• Size of your email
• Images
• Spam words in your subject line

All the above issues are to be checked and avoided before you hit the ‘Send’ button. Now let us take ride to solve the above issues:

You can check your subject line and the message against spam filters to know how your campaign rates. Also check out the spam levels in your emails. You can create more subject lines and launch different email campaigns each with different subject line. Based on the response rate, you get to know which subject line is working.

• Check all the links you have provided in the email. If the links in your mail are proven to be black listed, it is tough for your email to reach the inbox.
• Keep the size of your email optimum do not stuff it too much information making the recipient to ignore your email.
• Use images only if necessary. It is good to provide recipients an option to select between the text and the HTML version of the email. Note that some ISPs do not support all versions of emails.

4. Ask recipients to white list

Are you aware of the fact that once a recipient adds your address into their contacts list, it is easy for you get into the recipient’s inbox? It might seem pretty obvious but many marketers miss out on this simple trick of directing emails to inbox.

All you need to do is, just add a reminder at the top of the email so that the recipients can whitelist you by just adding your address to their contacts list.

5. Avoid Gimmicks

It has become pretty easy for the ISPs to know which sender fools around with their email tricks. And it is quite obvious that those who are caught in this would be blocked preventing any further emails from being delivered.

A few tactics that should not be a part of your email campaign:

• Crazy subject lines that dump you directly into the spam.  (Eg: “F.re.e. P.ri!z.e”)
• Dishonest subject lines or misleading or mis-claiming subject lines stating that the recipient has won some prize
• Including text message in the large images to fool the recipients

6. Reduce risky words

Risky words are one big hitch that you need to take care of. These words include “Free”, “Bonus”, “Winner of”, “Need help”, “Prize”, etc. It has been observed that leaving the subject line empty might also lead to spamming. Avoid cluttering your email with too many words. Do not use too many exclamation marks or question marks. Emphasize on the words, not the exclamations.

7. Keep in touch

Don’t forget to maintain a regular mailing pattern. Do not be confused as what to regular means in sending emails. It is pretty obvious that it is of no use sending 2 or 3 emails per day; the recipient might get frustrated and there are chances to be marked  ‘Spam’. A single email in 2 or 3 months is also not our preferable option; your customers might forget you and you may need to start building your relationship from the scratch. For such reasons narrow down to sending 2 to 3 emails per one month which is optimum.

8. Test your campaigns

Testing is an important part of your email campaign strategy. A simple tweak can bring in additional clicks. There are many aspects in your campaign which needs to be tested. It involves testing different variables in your email.

First, “Offers”. Now do not rush and state the same offers everywhere. Segment your list and try sending different offers to each segment. Track the results to know which offer is working better. Launch a campaign to your lists based on those results.

Second, “Look and feel”. Do remember that a good portion of response is depended on your creativity, how well and clear you design your email. Give your recipients an option to choose email format.

Third, “Mailing days”. The day of the week and the time of the day. It mostly depends to whom you are sending. If you are sending to employees who stick to their desks and check mails throughout the day, you need not consider about the time. But avoid sending emails on weekends and holidays.

Fourth, “Frequency”. Testing frequency might seem to be difficult, but you need to draw a graph for the frequency and the response. The volume of the email and the frequency of your emails have a great impact on your response. It is a known fact that regular emails work more than unplanned and irregular emails.

Last words

This white paper helps you in reaching the destination for the dynamic world of Email Deliverability with just 8 tactics. Following these, you can be assured that you would absolutely have a positive effect of your email campaigns. Remember that even if your email is most worthwhile, it becomes worthless if it is blocked and lands in the trash.