When I take my weekly spin class at the local gym, the instructor is constantly reminding the class to breathe. So often we go as fast as we can with all our effort towards rapid short-term gains, when we should relax, stay focused, and breathe. I wonder if this spin class should be a requirement for email marketers.
Successful email marketing strategy is a lot like my spin class: we start with a predefined warm-up, slowly move into the heart of the workout (remembering to breathe), and finish with a focused, well deserved cool-down.
No email marketing campaign should be attempted without a warm-up phase. This includes verifying the integrity of your list: Did all the recipients opt-in to receive your mailing? Did you set subscriber expectations during the opt-in process – type and frequency of your mailings?
Mailing lists with more than 10% undeliverable email addresses is a red flag to ISPs. Sending to recipients who previously unsubscribed will lead to Spam complaints and ISP blocks. If you are unsure about the integrity of your list, don’t send to it, or send to a small sample and analyze the results before using the entire list.
During the warm-up phase it is equally import to make sure you have a professional presence in cyberspace. You should have a public WHOIS record for easy domain identification. You need a well defined privacy policy on any landing page.
Use different IP addresses for your transactional mail and your marketing mail. Contact the ISPs about having your IP addresses added to their Feedback Loops and Whitelist. Information is available at the ISP’s Postmaster site, or if you are using an Email Service Provider, they should be able to assist you.
You need to stay current on authentication technologies. Having your DNS record in order with SPF records, DomainKeys and DKIM will help ensure your warm-up is complete.
Now you are ready to workout. Kick those email marketing best practices into high gear. Breathe!
Having a ‘from address’ that properly identifies your organization and a subject line that properly identifies your content is key because you only get one chance to make a positive first impression. Being tricky in order to get your message opened will only result in the recipient hitting the Spam button. I like to remind marketers that even if the message is not opened, brand awareness can be achieved through the ‘from address’ and subject line.
Professional looking content is key to recipient action. Nothing pushes the recipient away like a message that resembles a public access commercial. Make sure your brand is clearly visible and identifiable. As I stated before, brand awareness should be the goal of every email marketer. Remember that your content is being sent via email. It is not a webpage. There is no standard email client, so keep your HTML code simple.
OK class – Breathe.
Take the time to write targeted copy, and send it only the targeted group. Use demographic information to push this relevant content to segmented groups. Filtering companies are now frowning on messages that are primarily images, especially those that are just one big image. Add a short text piece for hand-held recipients who tend to weed through messages with their new tech devices.
The best kept secret in content design is adding a few short sentences to the very top of the message – right under your banner. Let the recipient know why they are receiving your message, ask them to add your ‘from address’ to their address book, and let them know where the functional unsubscribe link is so if they no longer want your messages they use the unsubscribe link and not the Spam button.
Wow! Breathe!
Test your message. Send it to a small group of internal recipients. Send it to a small group of external recipients. Use A/B split testing on different subjects and content. And most importantly if you are sending from a new IP address, send slowly! Nothing gets the ISP’s attention like a huge volume of email coming from a new IP address.
We can now hit the Send button and start our cool down.
Cooling down is critical. Analyzing your delivery reports will allow you to make adjustments for your next send. Take a look at hard bounces – messages that are only attempted once due to the bounce code. Most hard bounces will include unknown recipients and domains. Make sure these addresses are not sent to again. Also look through your hard bounces for ISP blocks. If you are being blocked, you will need to look closely at the bounce codes in order to take the appropriate action.
Soft bounces are messages that should be attempted more than once because of the bounce code. Soft bounces generally include busy mail server and message deferral issues. Just like with hard bounces, soft bounces need to be analyzed for ISP delivery issues.
Look at your open rate. A falling open rate is a good sign that you might be over mailing, sending to an audience that does not want your message, or sending to an ISP that is delivering your message to the bulk folder or filtering your message before it even gets to the mail server.
Breathe!
Another new secret used by successful email marketers is analyzing the spam complaints. If you setup a Feedback Loop in your warm-up, you know who is clicking on the spam button because they don’t know who you are, didn’t expect your message, or would rather hit the Spam button than use your unsubscribe link. Either way you need to know how many are hitting the Spam button and where these addresses came from. Spam complaints are now the number one reason messages are getting delivered to the bulk folder and being blocked.
Resolving ISP delivery issues is usually not too difficult. The hard part is making the necessary changes so that delivery issues do not become a permanent battle.
Your cool down is complete, so take one last breath and remember that just like a good work out you need to be in it for the long haul and not look for quick easy gains. Take the time to research best practices so you are constantly building a positive reputation with your recipients and ISPs.
