- What is Email Deliverability and What Hurts It?<\/a><\/li>
- 1. Segment Your Email Lists<\/a><\/li>
- 2. Take a Look at Your Opt-Ins<\/a><\/li>
- 3. Delivery Schedules<\/a><\/li>
- 4. Branded Sender<\/a><\/li>
- 5. Fix Your Subject Lines<\/a><\/li>
- 6. Get Your IP Primed<\/a><\/li>
- 7. Stop Using Your Gmail to Send Emails<\/a><\/li>
- 8. Get the Content Right<\/a><\/li>
- 9. Spam Traps Will Hurt You<\/a><\/li>
- 10. Check Blacklists<\/a><\/li>
- 11. No to No-Reply Addresses<\/a><\/li>
- 12. Practice Regular Email Hygiene<\/a><\/li>
- 13. Check Your Feedback Loops<\/a><\/li>
- Takeaways<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
What is Email Deliverability and What Hurts It?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Email deliverability refers to the process of getting your emails into the inboxes of your prospects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just because you know someone’s email doesn’t mean you can send them an email using any account and expect the message to go through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It doesn’t work like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are a lot of factors that affect your email coming through to an inbox. Everything from your wording on subject lines to how long your email has been around can all be factors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You could accidentally put in the phrase “special offer” and that could wreck your efforts, there are times where your IP can be blacklisted by mistake, and you could even be taking over from a previously spammy marketer that destroyed your company’s email reputation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here’s what.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It doesn’t matter how good your emails are if they don’t get through to your intended recipients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This guide puts together the 13 things that you can do to improve email deliverability, but you have to realize something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This isn’t a magic bullet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All of these 13 steps require constant maintenance to ensure proper deliverability moving forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1. Segment Your Email Lists<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
We’ve all heard that personalization is key in writing emails that resonate with your target audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But, you can’t personalize without segmentation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Segmentation is the process of dividing up your email lists into more targeted groups based on the characteristics of an individual persona.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The more you do this, the more personalized the messaging becomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here’s how to create ideal customer profiles<\/a> for lead generation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
We have to face the truth, people don’t like general emails, and if you find yourself writing too many of them then people are going to start unsubscribing or blocking you because your emails won’t be relevant to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To avoid this, create different lists for different target customer personas and create unique content for each list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You’ll find email deliverability rates rising, leads being more responsive to your emails, and a better lead nurturing experience being established for all of your prospects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It might seem like a simple hack, but growth hackers don’t do this enough because it takes too much and content creation for individual target lists takes a lot of time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
2. Take a Look at Your Opt-Ins<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
There are different ways to build multiple email lists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You can try to search for them manually (and we have plenty of guides on that) or you can grab them out of your landing page opt-ins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A lot of emails that you’ll get are based on the latter, and you’ve got to put in some qualifications with the opt-ins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you’re going to use their email to send them lead nurturing material, you have to put in a clear <\/em>disclaimer that you’ll be emailing them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Whether it’s in the form of print underneath the opt-in button, a popup, or even a small checkbox, they need to agree to the emails being sent to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This way they won’t be surprised when you do manage to send them a marketing email and mark you as spam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And, it doesn’t just stop with your primary opt-ins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Make sure that you have opt-outs built into the emails you send your prospects and make sure the unsubscribe feature is easy to use because it’s better for your email reputation that prospects unsubscribe than block you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alternatively, you can use a double opt-in approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although you won’t be using an opt-in for cold outreach, when you do manage to get prospects to subscribe to weekly newsletters or whatnot, you have to keep these notes in mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
3. Delivery Schedules<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
If you want to lower the chances of getting blocked or sent to the spam folder, have a consistent delivery schedule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For newsletters, you can do once a week and maybe twice if you’ve got a special offer like “Black Friday” or “Cyber Monday”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you’re running a cold email outreach strategy, do not ever <\/em>bombard them with too many schedules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Set up your outbound cadence to send out one email every 2 or 3 days, and make sure you lower that frequency if the prospect is still not replying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Also, stop sending out unnecessary emails at night and take note of your prospect’s timezones when sending out an email.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Make sure you send it at a convenient and non-invasive time in the morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you send them emails at night and they’re bothered you’ve just wrecked your campaign, communicating with you has to be as effortless as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
4. Branded Sender<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
When sending out emails, don’t just send them out with your first and last name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That’s not only “vanilla” but you run the risk of prospects not knowing who you are and what you represent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, the next question becomes, should I send emails using a company-branded account?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/bamf.lovelacecreative.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/image-16-1024x400.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nNope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now you run the risk of being too impersonal with your outreach emails.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The best way to do this is to follow other SaaS companies with their newsletters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here’s an example:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Houston from BAMF Media!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Simple right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You’ve managed to introduce yourself making it more personal, and you’ve got your company name to boot just in case they don’t know where you’re coming from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I like this approach because it takes the best of both worlds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You represent your organization, but you’re still personal with your approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Remember, being personal is the way to make real connections with any outreach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That’s the BAMF way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
5. Fix Your Subject Lines<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
One of the quickest things you can do to fix email deliverability is to do something about your subject lines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Your prospects are not the only ones reading your subject lines, email providers technically “read” them, too. Their filters act on certain trigger keywords that are usually found in the subject lines of traditional spam emails back in the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is why you should always strive to write email subject lines that drive emotion without having to resort to FOMO, usual power words, or plain marketing copy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now there are a lot of words that you should be avoiding, but that’s a topic for another guide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here’s a quick list to serve as an example:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- Act Now<\/li>
- Affordable<\/li>
- Apply now<\/li>
- Billion<\/li>
- Cheap<\/li>
- Compare rates<\/li>
- Credit<\/li>
- Double your income<\/li>
- Earn extra cash<\/li>
- Extra income<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
These might seem like powerful words to use in ad copy, but on emails, they’re a one-way ticket to the spam folder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you’re unsure of a word just remember this rule: if it looks like an early-2000s spam mail subject line, avoid it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Your subject line is the first thing that your prospect sees and it determines the “clickability” of the email that you’re sending out. It has to pass through the filter and get a prospect interested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
6. Get Your IP Primed<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
If you’re just starting out with a cold outreach campaign, don’t send out a gigantic batch of emails just yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You still need to prime your email address and IP so that recipient mailboxes won’t flag you as a spammy sender.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is especially true if you’re using a new email address.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most accounts online need to be warmed up before you can use them to their fullest, it doesn’t matter if it’s a LinkedIn, Facebook, or even Instagram account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You need to start small before you can go nuts with your campaigns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How to warm up your LinkedIn account.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
- 1. Segment Your Email Lists<\/a><\/li>
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/bamf.lovelacecreative.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/mxtoolbox-1024x327.png\")
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