Making your email the one your subscribers will open can feel like an increasingly difficult task these days. Most people are bombarded with emails from companies all day long, and many of those emails sit unread or worse, sent to spam.
How do you make sure your emails don’t suffer the same fate?
I’m going to walk you through a list of pointers that can help you ensure your emails land successfully in your subscriber’s inbox
Here are some thought points to get you started:
- Welcome email – Make sure you set up an automated welcome email that will be sent to every new subscriber. This email welcomes someone to your email list, letting them know more about your brand and what is to come.
- Encourage replies – Add a question to your welcome email that asks your subscriber to send a quick reply. For example, you might ask them why they joined your email list or what they’re hoping to learn. When your subscriber replies to this email, the engagement will help your future emails to land in their inbox.
- SPF / DKIM – These are a little more technical. Each email provider will ask you to set up SPF and DKIM records to improve the deliverability of your emails. These records add credibility to your business and help email servers see that your emails are genuine.
- Be consistent – It’s important to be consistent with your emails. If you choose to send a weekly or monthly email, make sure you keep sending them. Taking a long break or being very infrequent with the emails you send can hurt your deliverability and make your subscribers forget about you.
- Segment your list – One of the best ways to improve your email deliverability is to segment your list based on different criteria. For example, you might segment your list based on how often they open your emails, what topics they are interested in, or what actions they take on your website. By segmenting your list, you can send more relevant and personalised emails that will increase engagement and reduce spam complaints.
- Clean your list – Another way to boost your email deliverability is to clean your list regularly. This means removing inactive subscribers who haven’t opened or clicked on any of your emails in a long time. You can also remove hard bounces, which are emails that are returned as undeliverable due to invalid or non-existent addresses. Cleaning your list will improve your open and click rates and reduce the risk of being marked as spam.
- Test different subject lines – The subject line is one of the most important factors that determine whether someone will open your email or not. You want to create subject lines that are catchy, relevant, and enticing. You can test different subject lines using tools like CoSchedule’s Headline Analyser or SubjectLine.com. These tools will give you feedback on how to improve your subject lines and increase their effectiveness.
- Optimise for mobile devices – More and more people are reading their emails on their mobile devices, so you need to make sure your emails are optimised for them. This means using a responsive design that adapts to different screen sizes, using clear and legible fonts, avoiding large images that take too long to load, and using short paragraphs and bullet points for easy reading.
- Provide value – The most important thing you can do to ensure your emails land in your reader’s inbox is to provide value. You want to create emails that are useful, informative, entertaining, or inspiring for your audience. You want to solve their problems, answer their questions, or make them smile. By providing value, you will build trust and loyalty with your subscribers and make them look forward to receiving your emails.
