HOW EMAIL DELIVERABILITY AFFECTS YOUR LEAD GENERATION PROCESS?
Gone were the days when marketers had to send tons of letters and leaflets directly to their prospects’ mailbox. Marketers can now reach their target customers instantly through electronic mail. Nonetheless, the quality of your subscribers’ list and how successful you send emails can make or break your email campaign. Let’s find out how to improve Email Deliverability.
If you don’t assess and corroborate your email list, your money, time and effort will be put into waste. Imagine sending emails to hundreds of people who don’t really have an ounce of interest in your products or services.
Email marketing is still one of the most effective marketing strategies today and according to Adestra, 80% of business professionals and marketers believe that email marketing increases revenue and customer retention. This is why cleaning and validating your email list should be a part of your regular marketing efforts.
Email Marketing Metrics You Should Keep Track Of
Before you start your email marketing campaign, you should first identify your specific goals. Are you doing this to generate more leads? To grow your email subscribers? Or to increase customer retention? Knowing your goal can help you create more suitable mails but before you send your next email, you should first know the metrics you need to keep track of and how to tie them to your specific goals.
Email Deliverability
Email deliverability is making sure the designated emails you sent reached your prospects’ inbox and not somewhere else. Some people confuse it with “delivery” which means sending emails successfully without bouncing. Of course, you want your messages to reach the inbox of your target customers so they can read them. If they go to their spam folder, that’s when you’ll know your deliverability failed.
A lot of people, especially busy ones, only check their inbox or their primary email. While some don’t have time to check their social and promotional folders, some are just not interested in them. Also, if there’s something an email user will check, it’s definitely their spam folder.
In short, you have to make sure all your emails go directly to your prospects’ inbox to have a higher chance of being read. Once your message is read by your prospects, there’s a chance that they will forward it or act upon it.
There are different reasons why your email may not reach your prospects’ inbox such as having the blacklisted domain, your message being marked as spam or sending it to invalid email addresses. To avoid such problems, you should apply only the best practices to your email marketing strategy.
Open Rate
Another important quality metrics that you have to keep track of is your email open rate. Basically, this is the percentage of the recipients who actually opened your email. Most email providers give you an instant calculation of your open rates but if you want to make your own calculation, you just need to divide the total of unique opens by the number of emails you sent and subtract it from the number of bounces.
Your email open rate is very important for the success of your campaign but how will you know if you have a good open rate? According to Experian, the average open rate across all industries was 25%. Hence, you have to look at the average open rate in your industry if you want to set a specific benchmark.
Click-Through Rate
Your email click-through rate (CTR) is an important determinant of how effective your email campaign is. Your CTR tells you the rate of clicks on links in your email campaign. If you think CTR is all about call-to-actions, engaging subject lines, and a magnificent copy, you should think again. There are many other factors that affect your click-through rate such as your email length, the specific time you send the email, link emphasis and link positioning. Nonetheless, there are many ways you can increase your click-through rate and convert more prospects through your emails.
Like the open rate, the average click-through rate also depends on your industry so if you want to have a good CTR, you have to use more effective email approaches such as sending out only relevant messages, spicing up your content and improving your call to action.
Apparently, these KPIs or metrics affect your reputation as the sender. If you have a low open rate, click-through rate, and deliverability rate, your prospects will think you are not an effective marketer. If your subject line is not engaging enough, the recipients’ tendency is to ignore your email, or worse, delete it. If your content does not align with their needs or does not interest them, your prospects will never click your link and will never know what exactly you are offering. This is why you should work harder on increasing your deliverability rate and impress your prospects with high-quality, engaging emails.
Steps for Perfect Email Deliverability Rate
Validate and Verify your Email List
For successful email deliverability, you need to validate and verify all the emails in your list. Why? This is to avoid sending emails to invalid recipients and make sure that your recipients really exist. It can also prevent your emails from bouncing or going into spam folders. To validate an email address, you can do syntax verification but it will surely take a lot of time and effort. If you want to validate and verify everything in your email list much easier and faster, you can make good use of email validation.
Clean your Email List to improve the Email Deliverability
Once you have validated and verified your email list, you can now get rid of invalid email addresses and keep the valid ones. If you’re using an email list for over a year, it is likely that a lot of emails will bounce back since some of the addresses are no longer correct. This is why you should clean your email list every now and then to keep it updated. To prevent email bounce, you may use an email checker service, also called email verification service.
Find Blacklisting Issues and Fix Them Immediately
If your complaint rate is higher than your open rate and click-through rate, you are likely to be on a blacklist. Being blacklisted will make it really difficult for you to deliver emails to your prospects. Check your IP to know if you’re blacklisted and determine the reason why you were blacklisted. Fix all your blacklisting issues immediately and start delisting your email address.
Have your IP Certified
This can be a little costly but this can work wonders for your email campaign. If you clean and certify your IP, it won’t be affected if your emails get flagged as spam. There are email providers who make it certain that your emails won’t go into spam. If you get into their “white list,” you no longer have to worry about your emails not getting straight to your prospect’s inbox. This simple trick may cost you some bucks but it will help you increase your deliverability rate, drive more prospects to your website and eventually turn them into customers.
Avoid Spammy Words and Phrases
One of the reasons why your email goes to the spam folder is due to the usage of spammy words and phrases. Stop using common phrases or words that most people use so your email won’t be flagged as spammy. Make sure your email content is 100% original to avoid this deliverability issue.
Send Emails your Prospects Want, Not What You Want
Some email marketers tend to send messages according to their standards. However, this is not going to work for your potential customers. Most email users are busy and don’t have time to waste on emails that they don’t find engaging and relatable. If you want to catch the interest of your customers, you should create an email that they will find interesting. You should prioritize what your prospects want and the type of content they want to read. If you keep talking about things that don’t matter to them, your email will be ignored instantly.
Improve your List Acquisition Techniques
Looking for leads can be daunting and challenging but you need to be resourceful if you want to build an email list. One of the best ways to get email addresses is by using opt-in subscriptions. You can also rely on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to gain more subscribers. Don’t be tempted to buy email lists because they are illegal and unreliable. It’s better to build your own email list and reap the benefits of your hard work and patience.
Watch Neil Patel‘s video on “Growing your email list”.
If you have been having low deliverability rates, this is the time to reassess your email marketing strategies and follow the above tips. Email marketing is an effective way to convert leads into customers and increase your revenue so make sure you’ll make the most out of it. Treat your email list as a treasure and always take care of it. Eventually, you will get a lot of conversions while simply delivering emails to your prospects’ inboxes.
