How To Improve Your Email Deliverability

Last week I sent out two emails to my main list (if you haven’t subscribed, use the box on the right to join) on how to get better email deliverability. I thought I would post those same tips here on my blog for the benefit of people who might have missed it.

Email service providers are getting more rigid with rules and getting into the inbox of your prospects and customers is getting more difficult each day.

Here is a short list of tips that will help with getting better deliverability.

1. If your email messages are going to the spam folder, encourage your readers to click the “Not Spam” button to get back into the inbox (in fact, if you are seeing this very email in your spam folder, please click “not spam”).

2. Ask your readers to mark your messages as important for better deliverability.

3. Remove subscribers who are not opening your messages after a long period of time (i.e. one year).

4. Ask readers to reply to your initial emails so that email providers see a “conversation” occurring (conversations don’t look like spam)… heck even reply to this email to help me out. 😉

5. Add an SPF (Sender Policy Framework) to your domain records for better deliverability.

6. Use curiousity laden subject lines to get better open rates (opens indicate engagement).

7. Ask subscribers to white-list your email address by adding it to their contact list.

8. Ask readers to unsubscribe if they are no longer interested in receiving your emails. Seriously. Why keep people on your list if they are not interested in engaging with your emails? Not interested in hearing from me anymore, hit the unsubscribe link at the bottom of this email.

9. Reach prospects using other communication channels. When your readers are seeing you via multiple channels, they are more likely to open your emails. So go ahead and join me on Facebook 😛 http://facebook.com/gauherchaudhry

10. Use an email service provider that has excellent deliverability rates. If you’re using a cheapo service, or worse, your own IP, you’ll have deliverability issues.

11. Make sure your domain is not on any blacklists. This can hurt your deliverability if you have links in your emails using a blacklisted domain.

12. Avoid using generic style email address such as admin@ or support@ addresses in your from field.

13. Don’t over do it using images in your emails. Too many images can trigger spam filters on all the major email providers.

14. Ask readers to “turn on” images if you’re sending images in your email messages. It might not help deliverability, but it will give you and your email provider more accurate open rates.

Hope these help.

Gauher