Boosting Email Deliverability
Popov and McDonald have done it again. Well, in this case Popov and Pollard. In their recent ClickZ column, the pair offer 10 excellent suggestions for increasing your email deliverablity probability. That’s a mouthful, but the ideas are simple. Here’s a sampling, with my comments:
1.Two-thirds of senders don’t ask to be added to the Safe Sender’s list or address book.
There’s an old rule in sales: you don’t ask, you don’t get. If you do ask, you may also not get, but if you don’t for sure you won’t.
2.Nearly two-thirds neglect to provide a link to the website version of the email content, or related content.
Emails, as list marketers know only too painfully well, often don’t arrive intact. Images can be blocked, special characters can be garbled, etc. Give yourself a second chance by providing the full, unblemished and smartly tailored message in a special area on the site. And on that same page, be sure to provide links to important content — like the product or service you want to sell.
3.Half don’t provide a feedback email address.
Email marketing is about selling, certainly. But it’s selling by establishing and then building a relationship. Give your readers an easy-to-use channel to tell you what they think. After all, you’re emailing them. You surely want them to be able to email you, as well.
4.Nearly one-fifth fail to use a compelling subject line.
A good subject line is often the difference between your email being a spam message and being a successful sale email. Use a line that encourages opens not deletes.
For more tips, see the full text of Popov and Pollard’s excellent column, here.
And, oh, by the way:
a) Please add this email address to your Safe Sender’s list: info@affiliateclassroom.com
b) Use that email address for any feedback, but better still leave comments on the blog at http://blog.affiliateclassroom.com/
c) Thanks for being a reader of Affiliate Classroom and the blog. We welcome your comments.