4 Ways To Improve Email Marketing Campaign Deliverability
A brand that depends on email marketing for revenue should understand the factors that impact deliverability. In this article, Matthew Vernhout, VP of deliverability, Netcore Cloud, discusses four ways to improve email marketing campaign deliverability.
When implemented effectively, email marketing can drive company growth and customer engagement in amazing ways. That is why nearly 90% of marketers rely on email marketing to distribute their content online, according to Content Marketing Institute.
Of course, cutting through the noise can be challenging. With more than 306.4 billion emails sent and received each day, according to Statista, effective email marketing depends on the subject line, copy, images, and offer. It also requires that brands enhance deliverability, ensuring that their hard work and compelling copy reach consumers in the first place.
In other words, any brand that depends on email marketing for revenue must understand the factors that impact deliverability. After all, prospects will not see an email and cannot engage with it if it bounces or ends up in the spam folder instead of the inbox.
See More: 5 B2B Email Marketing Best Practices You Can’t Afford to Miss
Here are four ways to improve email marketing campaign deliverability:
1.Develop Excellent Data Collection Practices
People are more likely to engage with email marketing content from brands they know. Additionally, sending marketing emails to people who did not consent to receive such communications from a company can erode brand reputation, reduce engagement, and prevent future messages from getting delivered.
Therefore, companies should develop excellent data collection practices by acquiring explicit consent before distributing a marketing email campaign. For example, companies can prompt people to check an opt-in box or enter an email address in a field.
Attaining clear opt-in consent improves email marketing deliverability.
2. Maintain Authentication Records
Email authentication or validation standards are intended to prevent spoofing and other forms of email spam by verifying that an email originates from a legitimate sender. Collectively, SPF, DKIM, and DMARC authentication standards enhance marketing efforts by validating the sender and protecting the brand’s reputation.
A Microsoft analysis found that most companies fail to publish authentication records, leaving them vulnerable to being spoofed. Since today’s consumers are increasingly antagonistic toward brands that fail to follow security and integrity best practices, maintaining authentication records is a differentiator that can improve marketing campaign deliverability and effectiveness.
Don’t just set and forget your authentication records — be sure to review them at least quarterly to ensure accuracy.
3. Keep the Domain Healthy
To improve email marketing deliverability, companies need to keep their domain reputation healthy. Configure a subdomain for email marketing and perform regular list management to keep it operational. For instance, high bounce rates or old domain recipients are red flags for Internet service providers (ISPs), which can negatively impact email deliverability. Again, attaining recipient consent helps optimize email lists while reducing maintenance efforts.
Regularly purge non-engaged users from your list to protect your domain reputation.
4. Learn Customer Preferences
An effective email marketing campaign isn’t a stagnant operation. Instead, it’s a dynamic, evolutionary process that changes according to customer preferences. Fundamentally, brands need to ask, “Is my email marketing campaign providing customers with the information they want or need?” Digital communications allow for comprehensive analytics to determine critical benchmarks in response to this essential question, including:
- Which items are users clicking on and pursuing further?
- Are customers making purchases from email promos?
- Are customers replying to email marketing messages?
Harness digital metrics to determine campaign effectiveness and evolve to improve marketing outcomes continually. Companies may learn that some audience segments want to hear from brands daily or weekly while other segments prefer more intermittent outreach. Providing a preference center where recipients can customize their method frequency and other features helps companies be more responsive to their audience.
Finally, don’t be afraid to remove disengaged customers from an email list. Since these potential customers are not engaging with content anyway, removing them from the lists improves data quality, helping brands create a better experience for remaining recipients and, ultimately, increasing email marketing deliverability.
See More: How To Make Accessibility Part of Email Marketing Best Practice
Maximize Email Marketing ROI
When designed and implemented correctly, email campaigns represent a significant opportunity to maximize marketing ROI by growing brand awareness, converting leads, and enhancing revenue potential. Each of these benefits is contingent on deliverability. By focusing on these best practices, brands improve the likelihood that customers will receive and interact with their compelling, engaging email campaigns.
For companies relying on email marketing to drive business outcomes, deliverability is a priority worth pursuing today.
How are you improving the deliverability of your email marketing campaign? Share with us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
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