One of my favorite quotes from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy includes the line, “Not all those who wander are lost.” A lovely sentiment, but not always true in the world of email. Sometimes, you send your email off into the world full of hope and promise, and, unfortunately, it does get lost.
Whether your email was blocked by your past over-sending, it gets sent to an email address that no longer exists, or some technicality of wording or symbols, your email is lost forever in the abyss of deliverability problems that are as confusing as Tolkien’s Middle Earth. However, there are some steps that you can take to improve the chances of your emails making it through their journey, and it’s important to pass this knowledge on to anyone who is involved in your email creation.
First, take care of your list. Your audience is your biggest asset, so you’ll want to make sure that your email is getting to the correct people. Make it a priority to keep your list clean; get rid of those bounces, unsubscribes, and make sure you have a good opt-out system in place. This will ensure that your email is going only to the people who want to receive it, thus increasing the interaction with your email and improving the chances of your next email getting to the inbox. Make sure you have an internal process for doing this, and train new employees well on this area. Remember: consistency is key.
Next, make sure that you know best practices for designing your email. As I mentioned in my last blog, it’s important to make sure you have a consistent style for all of your media, thereby increasing recognition and interaction. The layout of your content is as important as the design of your template. Make sure that it’s not image- heavy, and avoid using full URLs; instead, make use of hyperlinks and landing pages. Also, make sure that your friendly from name and email addresses are consistent per type of email. Encourage your subscribers to add you to their safe senders list and aim to keep it that way.
Lastly, follow the letter of the law. As a past “almost lawyer” (I completed a year of law school before discovering the wonderful world of email marketing), I cannot stress the importance of following email Spam laws enough. Almost every country has laws regarding unsubscribe links, and here in the U.S. as well as here at Informz, we strictly follow the Can-Spam Act. This act requires non-transactional emails to have a physical address and unsubscribe link, to list a few. I would even go so far as suggesting that you include this in employee materials so that everyone who touches your email knows what they need to do to comply.
Having processes will help alleviate a lot of problems down the road, and it is well worth your time and effort to establish them. Here at Informz, we take steps to take care of many of these problems, but being educated on this area can never hurt you. We’ll assist you in this endeavor with our blogs, webinars, and other resources along the way. To see a full list of our deliverability services, visit our website. Our goal is to make sure that not only do your emails never get lost, but that they don’t wander, either.
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