5 Technical Tips to Better Understand Email Marketing
Understanding the technical requirements of improving the deliverability of your emails can at times be incredibly overwhelming.
Here are our top 5 Technical Tips:
How to avoid getting Blacklisted.
When to send your email.
Set up your automation.
Keep it short and sweet.
Build a constant flow of new subscribers.
How to avoid getting Blacklisted.
Q - First of all, what does it mean to be “blacklisted”?
A - Blacklist is a generic name for a list of email addresses or IP addresses that are originating with known spammers.
Q - I wouldn’t say I’m a known spammer, so do I need to worry about this?
A - Say for example you send 10,000 emails at one time, and there's a high bounce rate, you'll get blacklisted when the rate goes above 10%. Sending fewer emails as you warm up the IPs will help prevent that situation.
Your average bounce rate should sit at approx 0.7% no matter the size of your database. This information should be easy to find in the statistics of your current email provider.
Q - How do you reduce your bounce rate?
A - Only send your emails to active subscribers. Again, this information should be easy to find in your audience statistics. If you’re unsure how to send to just the active ones you could search “how to send to only active subscribers…X” e.g. mailchimp.
Other ways to avoid being blacklisted:
Add an Unsubscribe Link to Every Email.
Maintain Email Sending Frequency - send at least one email a week.
Use an Email Spam Checker. - ISNOTSPAM or GLOCK APPS
When to send your email.
Knowing the optimum time to send your email not only based on how your subscribers have historically behaved, but understanding the global trends will help you to define a really clear strategy. The following is a lengthy article produced by Campaign Monitor, if you love information this is for you. If not, it may seem a little overwhelming so here are my key takeaways.
Ultimate Email Marketing Benchmarks for 2020: By Industry and Day
Set up your Automation.
Automations are popular because it’s a great way to engage with your audience and doesn’t require any effort once it’s been set up. It will also help to improve your open rate, build brand loyalty and increase sales opportunities. Some of the most popular automations are welcome emails, thank you emails (post purchase) and a nurture sequence email workflow.
Q - What is an automation?
A - An automation is an email that is automatically sent to a subscriber when a criteria has been met. For example they’re a new subscriber and have confirmed their subscription. They’re added to your audience list where the criteria is “send Welcome Email to new subscriber when they’re added to this list”.
Keep Short & Simple.
People are getting busier every day. Nearly 3.4 million emails are sent every second.[*]
Who’s got time for that!
Do yourself and your readers a favour, and make your emails short and sweet.
Keep your emails no longer than 3 to 5 paragraphs. Use short sentences, bullet points and simple, easy-to-read wording.
If your newsletter covers more than one message ensure that your 3 to 5 paragraphs are total, and break up the areas using dividers, image and text graphics, and a combination of different font styles and sizes to convey key messages.
Build a Constant Flow of New Subscribers.
Through website opt-ins and landing pages ensure you’re getting in front of potential subscribers frequently. We strongly recommend creating a Lead Magnet or Hook to encourage new visitors by ensuring them that your business is worthy of dropping into their inbox regularly. If you’re a retail store consider a small discount of 10-15% or Free Shipping if you have a high threshold. If you’re a service business find a way of sharing your expertise in an easy to view / downloadable way. If you’re a hairdresser create a styling video, if you’re a personal trainer offer your top tips for muscle recovery.
The difference between opt-in forms:
Pop Up Form - does just that. Pops up when a visitor lands on your website. You can set a variation in time of when this should pop up, and whether you want this to show every time or for example once every 30 days for a returning visitor.
Inline Form - you will typically see these on a footer of a website, and they can convey the same message as your Pop Up or landing page.
Landing Page - landing pages can have it’s own URL so you can create multiple landing pages for different purposes. You may have several courses on offer at one time that you want to use to attract different audiences, or the same Lead Magnet you want to test in different markets, and want to include alternate images and copy.
BONUS
I recently made the move from Mailchimp to Flodesk*, and took several clients with me! No one has looked back!
Flodesk allows business owners to easily manage their EDM’s and successfully achieve all of the above.
I’m talking drag and drop, templates with your logo, colours and insta built in!
You’ll cut time and the design guess work, plus you can easily automate a raft of email sequences to really nurture your database.
Oh, and unlike many of the other platforms available it’s a fixed monthly rate no matter how big your audience grows.
If you’d like to save 50% on your monthly subscription (not just one off, it’s ongoing!) please use the code BLUSHWILD.
Or if you’d like help in setting up your account and creating your templates check out our Flodesk Set Up Package here
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. When you click on an affiliate link and make a purchase, I receive a small commission (at no additional cost to you). Affiliate links are marked with an asterisk (*).