In today's internet world, email marketing is one of the most reliable and effective ways to get more traffic, leads and sales for your business. But, to capitalize on the effectiveness of email marketing, you have to get the best email deliverability possible.
It's common knowledge that if people don't get your emails or they get sent to the dreaded spam folder (or even Gmail's promotional inbox), it will hurt your open rates, which of course will also hurt your click-through rates and sales conversions.
If you're building a business online, no matter what it is, you cannot have bad email deliverability affecting your sales.
What Exactly Is Email Deliverability?
Email deliverability has to do with the rate at which your sent emails get received by who you are sending to. There are also other factors involved, such as which inbox your emails are received in and whether or not it is considered spam.
For the best results, your sent emails need to be not only received, but received in the main inbox where people usually check when they look at their newest emails. For the full definition of email deliverability, read more here.
Related: Email Subject Lines… Double Your Open Rate
The Ultimate Guide To Perfect Email Deliverability
1. Use a good email service
Most people that just send emails back and forth every once in a while to coworkers or friends don't need to worry about email deliverability much. They most likely won't have any trouble. But, if you are running a business, you must focus on getting your emails seen by your target audience.
One of the surefire ways you can ensure that your emails are delivered effectively is to use a good email service like Mailchimp, Aweber, GetResponse, etc.
When you have to email prospects, leads, buyers, etc., you basically need to be using an email service like this anyway, so you might as well use one of the ones with the best deliverability.
My top 3 reasonably priced email services with great deliverability (no certain order):
Try one of these and you will definitely be satisfied with the results.
2. Avoid spam words throughout emails
Email account providers such as: Yahoo and Google (Gmail) have these little things called, “spam filters”, that go through your received emails and look for reasons to put emails in the junk/spam/promotional folders.
When your emails get put there, it's because of these filters detecting certain trigger words, too many links, or other things that are considered spam that people probably wouldn't want to read.
If you have a business, you need to prove that your emails are not being sent for the wrong purposes by avoiding using any spam trigger words.
Here's a list of some words that trigger these filters:
- as seen on
- fast cash
- buy direct
- profits
- clearance
- one hundred percent free
- order status
- stock alert
- shopper
- dig up dirt on friends
- additional income
- score with babes
- hidden
- freedom
- we hate spam <—(ironic isn't it?)
- weightloss
- million
And that is just to name a few. For the entire list of spam trigger words, see the full list here.
3. Too many links
If you have emails being sent out that are packed full of links, whether they're for traffic or affiliate links, it doesn't matter because they are seen as spam. A good practice is to never use more than a couple of links in your emails.
If you seem to be having trouble keeping links down, you need to learn to segment lists better or write shorter emails with a link to the main content.
4. Don't use pictures
Some people think pictures are great for visual people and including them in emails is a good practices, but it may send your emails to the junk folder if you use them. If you were just sending an email to a friend, you probably would have a quick message and wouldn't even think to use pictures or anything like that.
Instead, leave them out to decrease your chances of having sent emails end up in the wrong folder in your recipients' inboxes.
5. Pay attention to your email service filters
Once you're using one the higher quality email services, you'll notice that there are many features included that can help you increase your email deliverability. Services like Aweber actually have their own spam filters that scan your emails before you send them and give you a spam rating.
The higher the rating the more likely your email is going to be considered spam and not get delivered the way you want.
Try as hard as you can to have zero spam detected in your emails and you will give yourself a great chance to get good deliverability without worrying about checking off pictures, spam words, links, etc. manually.
Conclusion
Your email deliverability is very important to your open rates, click-through rates and most importantly, sales conversions. Make sure you don't use pictures, avoid spam words, cut down on the links and use the quality tools that email services provide you to maximize the results of your email marketing campaigns.