Email is one of the most effective tools marketers possess — for the simple reason that it works. Email marketing generates a whopping $44 for every $1 spent, according to the Direct Marketing Association. That generous payout potential, however, only has a chance if your email gets delivered. So, what steps can you take to improve your company’s email deliverability rates? In this deck, we’ll look at eight ways we find to effectively get your email into inboxes.

1. 8 Ways to Improve
Email Deliverability
Rates
FORSTER’S INSIGHTS

2. 8 WAYS TO IMPROVE EMAIL DELIVERABILITY RATES
STRUCTUREDWEB.COM
Email is one of the most effective tools marketers possess — for the
simple reason that it works. Email marketing generates a whopping
$44 for every $1 spent, according to the Direct Marketing Association.
That generous payout potential, however, only has a chance if your
email gets delivered. So, what steps can you take to improve your
company’s email deliverability rates? In this post, we’ll look at eight
ways we find to effectively get your email into inboxes.

3. 8 WAYS TO IMPROVE EMAIL DELIVERABILITY RATES
STRUCTUREDWEB.COM
We recommend you start small with any new email marketing efforts.
Blasting an email to thousands of addresses from an IP address that
doesn’t usually engage in that activity will send up red flags with your
ISP. Be certain you’re using a clean list — remove anyone who’s
unsubscribed in the past, double check spelling, and be certain the
individual still works for the company you’re sending to. A vetted list
of subscribers who have opted in to receiving your communication is
best, such as those who signed up on your company’s landing page.
1. Start small with an engaged audience

4. 8 WAYS TO IMPROVE EMAIL DELIVERABILITY RATES
STRUCTUREDWEB.COM
We’ll go out on a limb and say that any email that doesn’t add value is
spam. Be certain that every communication adds value. New product
or service offerings, special pricing, explanatory videos,
announcements for recent blog articles and customer case studies
are all examples of touches that add value. Quality matters, so if
you’re not a copywriter, engage a good one or leverage cobranded
content from your vendors.
2. Add value with each delivery

5. 8 WAYS TO IMPROVE EMAIL DELIVERABILITY RATES
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Once your company IP address has established a good reputation, do
everything within your power to maintain it. The most common
reason your emails don’t get delivered is due to a low “sender score”
since ISPs automatically reject any email that falls below a certain
score. Think of your sender score as akin to your personal credit
score. You can learn more about this and check your sender score for
free at SenderScore.org.
3. Maintain a good reputation

6. 8 WAYS TO IMPROVE EMAIL DELIVERABILITY RATES
STRUCTUREDWEB.COM
Another way to monitor your reputation is to subscribe to a feedback
loop from your ISP. You know that “Report as Spam” option in
Outlook? When a recipient of your email hits that button, your ISP
may be informed. You can ask your ISP to subscribe you to your
feedback loop so you’ll be informed about spam complaints.
Naturally, you should remove the email addresses contained in that
feedback loop from your marketing list. Keeping your spam complaint
rate low will help endear you to your ISP.

7. 8 WAYS TO IMPROVE EMAIL DELIVERABILITY RATES
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Consistent communications help establish your brand and put your
name in front of prospects when they have a need. The consistency
also helps “train” your ISP about the legitimacy of your activities. You
can choose the cadence that fits your style and message (please, no
more than once a week) but once chosen, make a commitment to
delivering valuable content on that schedule.
4. A consistent send schedule works best

8. 8 WAYS TO IMPROVE EMAIL DELIVERABILITY RATES
STRUCTUREDWEB.COM
We can’t reinforce this point enough. Only send emails to a recipients
list of recipients that have actively opted in to receiving your
communications. We’ll offer up some ways to build your list in an
upcoming post. One of the quickest ways to prompt your ISP to cut
you off is to send unsolicited emails that get reported as spam.
5. Permission, permission, permission

9. 8 WAYS TO IMPROVE EMAIL DELIVERABILITY RATES
STRUCTUREDWEB.COM
Perform periodic reviews of your email marketing list, looking for
duplicates or for recipients you know have moved on. It’s even a
good practice to periodically (every couple of years) ask recipients
to re-subscribe to your mailings — just to be sure you’re speaking to
an engaged audience. And always (it’s the law) include an
unsubscribe button on your email communications.
6. Keep it clean

10. 8 WAYS TO IMPROVE EMAIL DELIVERABILITY RATES
STRUCTUREDWEB.COM
A sender policy framework (SPF) increases your perceived
trustworthiness in the eyes of the receiving email server. SPF allows
the receiving mail server to check whether an email claiming to come
from a specific domain is submitted by an IP address authorized by
that domain’s administrators. Without SPF, it’s too easy to send an
email claiming to be from any source address, making it more difficult
to trace a message back to its source, and easier for spammers to
hide their identity. You should consider creating an SPF record for
each domain used to send email and for each sender. It’s not difficult
to do, but you’ll need some specific technical data, so we
recommend you loop in your IT team if this is something unfamiliar.
7. Use SPF to keep from getting burned

11. 8 WAYS TO IMPROVE EMAIL DELIVERABILITY RATES
STRUCTUREDWEB.COM
Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance —
or DMARC — is an email authentication, policy, and reporting
protocol. It builds on the SPF and DKIM (more on that later) protocols,
taking them several steps further. DMARC is designed to protect
against direct domain spoofing — or phishing. DMARC is a free and
open technical specification and requires a change to your DNS
record. Here again, loop in your IT team for details.
Email marketing sometimes gets a bad rap, but that’s because there’s
still too many bad actors out there. The good news is that technology
is getting better at both detecting spam and legitimate marketing
communications. If we all strive to follow best practices for email
marketing, nearly all of us will be happier to open our inboxes each
morning.
8. Make your mark with DMARC

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