Best practices for successful email marketing

Email marketing has become one of the most effective channels to reach your desired customers with targeted, personalized, and timely communications.  However, with the explosion of email marketing, the risks of ending up in your customer’s Spam filter are high.  Consider the recommendations below to improve your email marketing success.

1. When switching to a new email marketing system, be sure to use your previous sender’s address (ie. info@company.com, salesrep@company.com)

2. Slowly ramp up your email send volume through a technique called “throttling.”  Throttling can be managed through your ISP and/or manually through list management.  Start with smaller email quantities (eg. 500, 1000) and over a period of hours or days increase the volume to larger desired quantities.

3. Be sure to edit your SPF (Sender Policy Framework) record with your software vendors IP range.  SPF records allow domain owners to publish a list of IP addresses or subnets that are authorized to send email on their behalf.

4. Add dynamic content to your emails.  Doing so demonstrates a knowledge of the email target.

5. Check your email content to ensure a blend of image and text content.  Too heavy on image content could trigger Spam filters

6. Do not use purchased or rented lists.  Many marketing automation software vendors prohibit this practice to protect their own reputation.

7. Formatting your emails properly is critical to avoid Spam filters.  Avoid using ALL CAPS.  Include colors in your emails, however, avoid heavy doses of red.  Limit use of expressions such as “Alert”, “Free”, “Deal”, or the use of exclamation marks.

8. Do not embed videos or forms directly in emails.  Rather, include attractive images that link to separate landing pages/forms.  This allows you to capture additional information about your targets who click through to these landing pages.

9. Use a double opt-in process for email.  This a best practice and is required in Canada.

10. Test your emails.  Most marketing automation software has testing capability within its functionality.  Additionally, ensure to implement a testing process internally to ensure emails do not go out without meeting this objective.

11. BONUS – If available, use Spam testing or scoring functionality to ensure emails will not get hung up in Spam filters and to help identify what aspects of the email need adjustment.

Email marketing is still one of the best ways to reach your desired targets.  By following these important practices, your chance of reaching your intended targets is greatly improved.  If you have questions about these recommendations or any other aspects of email marketing, marketing automation, or marketing best practices contact us here.  Best of luck with your email marketing!

Coffee + Dunn is an industry leading connected experience partner uniquely focused on building effective customer engagements through the strong alignment of technology, operations, and strategy.​ Our award-winning services enable customers to drive growth and optimize value across various industries, including financial services, professional + collegiate sports, manufacturing, healthcare and education.