A considerable part of business success depends on your email reputation. A good reputation means good deliverability and vice versa. Building a good reputation is, therefore, one major goal that you should strive for. There is no shortcut to this process. And we all know that the price of a bad business reputation is high.
You need the following tips to ensure that the email and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) you are using will give you a good email reputation.
Obey the standards set by the email providers and ISPs
Be aware of the standards set by your email providers and the ISPs. If you need to, read over all their rules and regulations on how to conduct your email activities. Strive to follow their rules and regulations, and they will look upon your organization with favor.
Be consistent
Avoid sending hundreds of messages at one time and then not sending messages the rest of the time.
Your ISPs will see you as someone who is not consistent and regular in sending out email messages to your target market. The ISP will tag you with a lower reputation because they can only work on a few data to base their analysis.
The key, therefore, is to be consistent with the sending out of emails.
Limit your email list to opt-in based data
You need to practice cleaning bad data from your email list. This will ensure that your bounce rate is low. As a result, your email sender reputation will also improve. Whenever you send emails to subscribers who are not active, the ISPs’ filters will be flagged. This will have a detrimental effect on your email reputation score.
Warm-up your IP address
If you are just starting, it is a good practice to attenuate the sending out of your emails. That means, sending small batches of emails at the start and then gradually increasing the numbers as you progress.
If you will automate your emails, this is one of the email automation benefits. This process will usually take a couple of months. But as your recipients respond to your emails, your ISPs will see that you are sending legitimate and actionable messages, not spam.
Improve deliverability by verification and validation
In very simple terms, email deliverability means your emails are delivered and read by your intended recipients. It is therefore easy to see why you need to verify and validate your email list. This will ensure that you are not sending out your messages to ghost entities.
Verification and validation should be done regularly, especially if your list is already several months old. Doing so will considerably lower your bounce rate and thereby improve your email sender reputation.
Never buy email lists
One of the obvious pitfalls of buying email lists is that most email subscribers mark your emails as spam when it is delivered in their inboxes. Therefore, don’t fall into the temptation of buying email lists just so it will appear that you have a large operation. This practice will not ensure the deliverability of your emails because you are not really sure if the names and addresses on those lists are still active.
The individuals or organizations on that list may have already changed their addresses. Or, they may not exist at all. If ever someone sells you an email list, be sure that it is verified and validated. If you don’t bother to do this, your bounce rate will increase and your email sender reputation score will drop down.
Always provide quality and timely content
As always, content is king. Content is also a major factor in email deliverability and reputation score. It plays a major role whether your email messages will be delivered in your recipients’ inboxes or in their spam folders. What are some of the issues that ISPs watch out for in flagging down an email as spam? The email may contain the following content:
- Suspicious subject lines that are designed to attract attention
- Exclamation marks
Avoid being flagged down by ISPs and email providers by observing and following the best practices in emails. And, use a spam checker before sending your emails out. There are spam checkers that are free to use and available online.
There are still many tips that you can find on the internet on this subject. But if you will focus your efforts in following the few tips above, you will already be on your way to really build a good email sender reputation and also improve your message’s deliverability.
These views are made solely by the author.