How to Make Sure Your Emails Get Delivered

Featured article by Emily Roberts, Independent Technology Author

Email is the go-to method for pretty much all online businesses when it comes to communicating with their customers and clients. Although social media marketing has really taken off over the last few years, email marketing and mass-email are still as popular as ever and are at the core of any modern digital marketing campaign.

Although this may be the case, there is one danger associated with sending mass emails: being sent to the spam folder. As a business owner, how can you be sure that your emails are being delivered to your customers and subscribers? There are many steps you can take and methods you can adopt to avoid spam filters and ensure that your emails are being delivered.

#1: Send Emails from a Trustworthy IP Address

The easiest way to get sent to the spam filter is to send your emails from an IP address which is regarded as untrustworthy and is already associated with spam emails. ISPs have clever email filters, which are designed to block emails from suspect IP addresses.

For instance, an IP address that is located in an obscure location (such as the middle of an African country) will be viewed as more suspicious by spam filters than an email which is coming from the middle of New York City. That’s not to say that having an IP in a suspect location is an instant email campaign killer; start your campaign off small and grow your email list over time and you will find that your IP address builds trust and will have its own positive reputation.

#2: Purge Old Subscribers

If you have had your email list for a long time, it may well be that you have a number of subscribers who have lost interest and no longer interact with your emails. Although it can be tempting to keep these loose ends, they can do more harm in the long-term as it drags down your email engagement statistics and harms your deliverability.

In addition to people who no longer engage with your emails, you will definitely have email addresses which are non-existent. These may have been entered by mistake (typos) or done purposely for whatever reason. By purging these email addresses, your email engagement will increase and deliverability along with it.

#3: Send Emails Only to Opt-Ins

We can’t stress this point enough: you should only send your emails to people who have chosen to opt-in to receiving them. Nothing creates distrust and discontent more than being sent emails you never asked for!

Sending your emails to people who have never opted into your email list (i.e. by purchasing an email list) means that engagement will be very low as the recipients have no interest in reading your email. This will massively impact on your email’s deliverability and is a sure-fire way for spam filters to grow weary and suspicious of you.

#4: Use Good Grammar

There are several red flag things spam filters look for when screening suspect emails, including:

– Text which is typed all in caps;
– Too much punctuation;
– Use of classic spam-related words;
– The use of red font; and
– Lots of misspelling and grammar errors.

Although reputable emails may sometimes contain some of the above, having all of these in one email is the hallmark of an unwanted spam email and will get your email sent straight to the spam filter. We are not saying you need to write your emails impeccably and have them proofread, merely that you should avoid including too much of the above.

#5: Send Consistent Content

The very best way you can improve your email deliverability is to organically grow your list of subscribers by getting more people to open your emails, engage with the content and share it. The best way you can do this is by sending content people are interested in.

You should send emails your customers will want to read, not what you think they will want to read. Your subscribers have entrusted you with their email address, so they can receive high-quality content from you. Whether you are sending a newsletter, discount codes, or anything else, there needs to be something within which makes them want to engage with it and tell others.

These five tips are just a few of the many steps you can take to improve your email deliverability. In general, so long as you have high-quality and engaging content which people are actually interacting with, you should have no problem. Over time, your email list will grow, and your emails’ prowess will improve. When you are sending an email, ask yourself whether it looks good, whether there are any glaring spelling or grammar mistakes, and whether it is something you would actually want to read as a customer.