Email Delivery Tips

Email marketing involves sending out bulk emails to subscribers. While this sound like a great concept, there are actually problems you will encounter in e-mail delivery. In the past, ISPs are the key factor because it scans the email for content but nowadays, reputation has become the most essential factor. Take note though that “reputation” is a combination of many factors including recipient reputation and ISP reputation.

? Recipient reputation ? this is your track record with the subscribers. You need to send out relevant and timely content at the right frequency to the identifiable subscriber.

? ISP reputation ? this is your tract record in sending emails to live and accurate email addresses. The “from” address as well as the IP address needs to be consistent; the content you send out should be also opened by the intended recipients.

Here are some tips for you to improve the inbox delivery rate:

1. Send content that will build your reputation ? that means you need to send out only information that are relevant to their needs because otherwise they will view your emails as irrelevant; this can damage your reputation.

2. Don’t send unnecessary emails ? when subscribers get too many emails in a short period of time from your company, they will no longer open most of them. ISPs such as Gmail, Yahoo, and MSN can detect open rates as well as click-through rates; your ISP reputation can be damaged if these emails are not opened.

3. Use feedback loops ? this will let you instantly unsubscribe the recipients who tagged your mails as spam messages.

4. Remove recipients with “hard bounces” ? it hurts your ISP reputation if you frequently send emails to “bad” email addresses.

5. Woo back the subscribers ? use attention-grabbing subject lines and offer special promotions or discounts. Your open and click-through rates will improve; likewise, your emails will no longer be tagged as spam.