by Troy Janisch
Sending email is fast, free and far-reaching. The trick is getting past SPAM filters and optimizing the open rate of each email marketing campaign.
With the increasing prevalence of SPAM filters, there is often no guarantee that the email your company sends to prospects and customers will reach the intended inbox. SPAM filters are rules used by most Internet Service Providers (ISP's) and email software programs to reject and remove unwanted email messages. Since SPAM email message can be difficult for SPAM filters to distinguish from other messages, they sometimes block legitimate emails sent by your company.
Often, the more aggressive or sophisticated a SPAM filter is, the less likely it is to deliver legitimate messages that don’t comply with best practices:
Avoid Complaints
Make it easy for recipients to unsubscribe. The most common reason a company’s email messages get filtered or blacklisted is because the intended recipient complains to their ISP. When recipients contact their ISP, your domain is likely to be blacklisted or added to the ISP’s SPAM filter to avoid future complaints.
Avoid using ‘CC’ and ‘BCC’ for email campaigns
Outgoing messages should be addressed individually ‘TO’ each recipient. Use bulk email program or service that can send individual, personalized messages.
Have a Valid DNS entries for your Domain
Ensure your ISP had proper DNS entries, SPF records, and Sender ID records for your domain. ISPs receiving your mail often check your DNS record to ensure that your DNS entry is configured properly and isn’t identified as a known spammer.
Send Blasts in Batches
When ISPs identify a large volume of incoming/outgoing messages from the same sender, it looks like SPAM. Contact your own ISP before sending emails in large batches to ensure they will be supported. Otherwise, your messages may be rejected or flagged as SPAM.
Write A Meaningful Subject Line
The subject line of outgoing messages is important. Subject lines that are missing; use all capital letters; include too many number, question marks or exclamation points; or include common SPAM phrases are likely to trigger SPAM filters.
Avoid Common SPAM Phrases
SPAM filters examine incoming email messages to determine the likelihood of SPAM. Messages that include common SPAM phrases are often rejected or deleted. 50 terms to avoid:
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Avoiding SPAM filters ensures that your email messages are delivered. Thereafter, the challenge is to ensure that your email messages will be read.
Optimizing the Open Rate
Since an email marketing campaign can only be effective when individuals read your messages, the success of an email marketing campaign is often influenced by its open rate (the percentage of delivered emails that are opened). The open rate is measured by sending emails in HTML format with a snippet of code that triggers a counter when messages are rendered by a recipients email reader.
Email campaigns that achieve an open rate of 40 to 60 percent are typically considered successful. However, open rates of 20-30 percent are more common.
A number of factors influence the open rate:
The Subject Line
Subject lines should invite recipients to open your email. Subject lines should be creative and action-oriented. For e-newsletters, related the subject line to the content within each issue. If you have demographic information, consider personalizing the subject line to make it more meaningful and personal for each recipient. If possible, make the subject timely by relating to upcoming events, weather, or current trends.
Time of Day/Day of Week
Test different days and times until you find what works best. Performance will vary depending on your recipients and the content of your email. For example, you may find that your e-newsletter has a peak open rate at a different time than the peak open rate for promotional offers.
Consider sending email to free email accounts during non-business hours, since individuals checking their personal email account from work may be less likely to read incoming messages while at the office.
Time of Year/Seasonality
Summer months generally produce lower open rates due to vacation schedules. Holiday seasons may raise open rates for ecommerce retailers, but may produce lower open rates for enewsletters.
Frequency
Sending email too infrequently may cause recipients to forget why they subscribed to your information (lower awareness). Sending emails too frequently (oversaturation) can also drive open rates down.
Recipients With Free Accounts
Recipients who use free email accounts provided by HotMail, Yahoo and Google typically don’t access their email as often as recipients using business or personal domains.
Subscription Method
The more familiar a recipient is with your company – and the more they are involved in the subscription process – the more likely they will be to open email from your company. Opt-in lists typically have higher open rates than lists generated automatically from customer email addresses. Double-opt-in lists typically have the best open rates.
The open rate can only be measured for individuals to read your email in HTML format. Individuals to elect to view your email messages in text format will not be monitored. Nevertheless, open rate is an important indicator of the success of an email marketing campaign.
