Email list management is key to ensure your email campaign is delivered. Many people focus on open rates without realizing their deliverability is sub-optimal. Working hard on email campaigns only to end up in spam is a bummer. But how old is your lair? Email lists go stale like old bread.
Amy Hall joins Jason and Bridget to discuss how to stay out of spam! It’s pretty technical but we believe in you. (Even Bridget did her homework — which took about an hour.)
“When you buy an email list you are wasting your money.” Amy Hall
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Authenticate Your Domain Name
The first tip has has “nothing to do with the email that you’re building, it has to do with your own email address,” Amy says. If you’d like to stay out of the junk or spam folders, then be sure to authenticate your domain name with your email marketing provider.
“Don’t send [your email campaign] from Gmail!” Amy Hall
“Oops!” Bridget Willard
Email From Your Domain Name
Maybe you were like Bridget and were sending email campaigns from Gmail. It’s okay. You can fix that. (She did right after this episode). This is really important for email deliverability (staying out of the spam folder.)
Let the receiver’s inbox know that your email is a real and valid address and not being spoofed. This is why you use DMARC markers on your DNS server. Mailchimp is a great resource for soft and hard bounces. Mailchimp has great instructions for DKIM and SPF.
Most email campaign providers like ConvertKit, Active Campaign, and Constant Contact have these services or help articles.
Then, ensure you send emails consistently. Whatever you promise in your welcome message (every week, twice a year), do that.
Clean Your List Regularly
This is where automation can be your best friend. If an email subscriber hasn’t opened an email in 6-9 months, send them a re-engagement campaign asking them to take an action. Then send them to a “thanks for sticking around” type of landing page.
You can clean your list through a service separate from your campaign provider. Amy recommends downloading the CSV, cleaning the list, then uploading the CSV. It’s better not to have that ding in your account.
“And the thing about it is, is it doesn’t, they count, doesn’t get pinged that you have bad email addresses in it, so you don’t have to ding against you because it’s not really a ding, but it isn’t ding, they’re going to be watching you because you have that email addresses.” Amy Hall
Don’t Be That Person
It’s easy to add people to your lists. Bridget does it. We all do it. If you do, have an automated welcome email with the reason why that person was added and the ability to unsubscribe.
“It is against the law to send an email without an unsubscribe option,” Amy reminds us. If you see these, report them as spam in your email reader (email client).
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Amy recommends Kickbox to clean your emails.
Jason recommends Timerly for Toggl.
Bridget recommends wordhtml.com for cleaning HTML.
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