5 Tips to Ensure Email Gets Delivered

Email marketing remains a valuable way to stay in touch with potential customers and clients interested in your services. However, you must be careful that your email address does not become recognized as spam.

You don’t have to be a “miracle weight loss” type sender to be flagged as spam. You may be legitimately marketing your business, but if your reader perceives your email as spam all they have to do is hit the “mark-as-spam” button and your email gets a strike against it.

Too many strikes and your email deliverability will decrease and no longer reach your readers inbox. . . including those who like your material.

Here are 5 steps you can take to ensure email gets delivered.

1. Only add people to your list who specifically give you permission to do.

I recently attended a business conference which involved a lot of business card exchanges. I was amazed the number of newsletters I started receiving the week after the conference. During all of my conversations, I never once gave permission for my email address to be added to a list. You can bet I unsubscribed from everyone. . .and it wouldn’t have been quite simple to check they box saying “yes, this is spam” during the unsubscribe process. I did not do this, but that doesn’t mean others don’t. Protect the integrity of your email and do not add people to your list unless they ask you to do so.

2. Provide an easy way to unsubscribe.

The CAN-SPAM law requires that you include a link to unsubscribe in every message you send. Do not try to hide this. If someone does not want to receive your messages, then it’s highly unlikely they will ever become a paying client. Give them an easy and convenient option to say “no thanks” and unsubscribe before they get frustrated and report you as spam.

3. Use the right “from” email address.

Make sure your from email address is the one linked to your domain or website where individuals opt in. If readers are expected an email from name@optinpagewebsite.com and they receive an email from name@hotmail.com they are more likely to be confused, not open the email, and potentially flag it as spam.

4. Avoid invisible images or hidden links.

Invisible content, such as hidden tracking images, is frequently considered a sign of spam and may cause your email to be flagged as spam before it ever reaches your readers inbox.

5. Be consistent with your emails.

Don’t send an email to your list once a month and then suddenly bombard them with an email a day. Plan your marketing campaigns and communicate with your list on a regular (and reasonable) basis, so they become use to seeing you in the email inbox.

Bonus Tip: Avoid words commonly viewed as spam.

Certain words and phrases are frequently regarded as spam and can cause your email to never reach your readers inbox. Some of these words include:

Optin
Free
No selling
Urgent
Unlimited
Get started now
Opportunity
Order now
Cancel at any time

How to Know If Your Email Passes the Test?

I use to use a tool provided by sitesell.com, but I just checked and it looks like the free version is no longer available, so here’s another option – http://www.contactology.com/check_mqs.php

Simply enter your from email address, subject line, paste your content into place, and click submit. It’ll score your email from 0 to 100. The closer you are to 100 the better. It’ll also identify potential concerns so you can decide if you want to make any adjustments prior to sending.

Depending on the list management service you use (i.e. Aweber, 1ShoppingCart, ConstantContact) spam check options may be provided as part of the service.

All the best,
Lisa Nelson