How to Make Sure Your Emails Land in Your Prospects' Inboxes
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How to Make Sure Your Emails Land in Your Prospects’ Inboxes How to Make Sure Your Emails Land in Your Prospects’ Inboxes | 1 Table of Contents Why Aren’t My Emails Getting Through? 3 Authentication 5 Permissions 7 Reputation 9 Sender Reputation 9 Cleanliness & Monitoring 10 List Source 10 New Domain Address Warming 11 Review Bounces 14 Monitoring Blacklists 15 Follow the Rules - CAN-SPAM, CASL, GDPR & CCPA 16 Engagement 17 Know Your Audience - Relevance, Frequency & Content Review 17 Unsubscribe Links 18 Conclusion 19 How to Make Sure Your Emails Land in Your Prospects’ Inboxes | 2 Why would my emails never make it to their destination? As we move further into the era of technology, email has become the primary source of professional communication. As a result, bad actors are doing whatever it takes to get you to view their emails. How many members of the Nigerian royal family have contacted you to transfer their fortune to your bank account? In response to more frequent attempts to phish, hack, and send spam, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are doing everything they can to protect their customers from potentially unsolicited email, ! including blocking bulk email sends from new domains and internet protocol (IP) addresses. It’s important to remember that ISPs are always looking to protect their users (and investors). Because you’re sending emails to reach out to your prospects, these new measures have a direct impact on your ability to have your legitimate emails delivered to the inbox. How to Make Sure Your Emails Land in Your Prospects’ Inboxes | 3 Ultimately it is the practices of your company, and your engagement strategy, that determines whether or not your messages get through. Ultimately it is the practices of your company, and your engagement your ability to connect with your prospects. This guide will dive deep strategy, that determines whether or not your messages get through. into each category, from behind-the-scenes activity to reviewing how There are three primary categories which, when combined, affect you engage with prospects. Authentication & Sender Reputation Monitoring & Cleanliness Engagement How to Make Sure Your Emails Land in Your Prospects’ Inboxes | 4 Authentication Email authentication is a technical standard that lets you verify that you are who you say you are so you aren’t flagged as spam or a spoof (someone phishing for personal information). Without email authentication, bad actors can change their email addresses and copy the branding of legitimate senders in an attempt to steal personal information. Often, email authentication is put in place by your Information Technology (IT) team. Your IT team can configure your mail servers such that when an email is received by your prospect, their email server can check the message you sent and compare it to the rules put in place by your IT team. Gmail and Microsoft usually set up ! these policies for you when your mailbox is configured, but it’s good to check before you start sending a large number of emails. If you’re using Exchange, your IT team may manage your on-premise server, so you’ll need to work with them ensure you have SPF and DKIM (more on those in a moment) set up prior to sending mailings. How to Make Sure Your Emails Land in Your Prospects’ Inboxes | 5 2. SPF (Sender Policy Framework) is closely tied to DKIM. It’s an email validation system that’s designed to prevent email The only thing better spam and to authenticate senders. SPF looks at the sender IP address and checks to ensure that the mail is coming from than having a great an authenticated and verified sender. If an email comes from somewhere that isn’t listed in the SPF record, the incoming quarter is knowing with server can assume it was spoofed or otherwise illegitimate and full confidence that every reject it as spam. future quarter will be just 3. DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance) is another email authentication protocol that as great. allows senders and receivers to report domains that may be sending fraudulent mail. DMARC policies let the sender indicate that their messages are authenticated with SPF and DKIM, and can give instructions on what to do in the event that the sender Email Authentication is created through three standards: SPF, DKIM, is not verified (send to spam, reject the email entirely, etc.) and DMARC. tracks resonated the most, what was the best time to reach out, etc? The only thing better than having a great quarter is knowing 1. DKIM (Domain Keys Identified Mail) is an authentication protocol with full confidence that every future quarter will be just as great. that’s used by email receivers/domains to determine if the sender is really who they say they are. The domain key is a What can you do? DKIM and SPF should be a standard part of your specialized key that can be used only by one particular sender. basic technical setup requirements; DMARC can be considered an As a result, it goes a long way to reassure your prospect’s additional option. Reach out to your IT team to verify that SPF, DKIM, mailbox that your message is legitimate, and not a fake. This will and DMARC have been set up. If not, encourage them to authenticate contribute positively toward your anti-spam score. your email. How to Make Sure Your Emails Land in Your Prospects’ Inboxes | 6 Permissions Receiving permission to deliver emails can improve your overall engagement and deliverability. This is commonly known as “opting- in”. Opt-ins are either implicit or explicit consent to engage with an individual prospect. For example, the individual may belong to a company that is already a customer, or perhaps they filled out a form to sign up for a webinar. Sending emails to prospects that have granted you permission to contact them will result in stronger engagement (opens, clicks, replies). This benefits your sender reputation because engagement is the #1 factor email providers look at when determining inbox placements. This isn’t to say that cold emails are bad, they simply require extra care. Researching and personalizing email campaigns, and sharing ! relevant content with prospects that have not implicitly or explicitly opted-in, will help ensure they don’t click the “this is spam” button. Remember, ISPs watch how their customers interact with every email. If they notice that a lot of people mark your email as spam, they’ll start sending your emails directly to the junk folder. HowHow toto MakeMake SureSure YourYour EmailsEmails LandLand inin YourYour Prospects’Prospects’ InboxesInboxes | 7 What can you do? Don’t buy lists of prospects, which are likely Target specific filled with spam traps, bad data, and contain names and emails of individuals who have not given you implicit or express permission to contact them. It’s less likely prospects will engage with your personas and email if they have not, in some form, asked for the content you’re take the time sending them. If you are prospecting to unengaged users, consider using LinkedIn to create the initial point of contact and build trust with your to research and prospect before suggesting moving over to email. Once you’ve added them to an email campaign, make sure you target specific personas personalize and take the time to research and personalize your emails (and include an unsubscribe link if sending emails in bulk!). your emails A word of caution: rules on cold emailing vary from country to country (i.e. GDPR), and even state to state. Please ensure you are complying with all applicable laws. Furthermore, the information contained in this guide does not constitute legal advice and should not be used as such. We recommend you consult with the appropriate legal counsel for that purpose. How to Make Sure Your Emails Land in Your Prospects’ Inboxes | 8 Reputation Sender Reputation Your ability to get email delivered is directly tied to your reputation 4. Rejections - How many of your emails bounce compared as an email sender, which has become more important as bad actors to others? adopt more strategic ways to appear as legitimate senders. Your sender reputation is a measurement of your email practices and When an email is sent to a prospect, the sender reputation is how trustworthy your IPs and domains are according to ISPs and considered by the mailbox and filtered into the inbox, the spam folder, spam filters. The stronger your reputation, the more likely it is that or rejected entirely. This decision is based on the prospect’s mailbox configuration, which is often controlled by their IT teams. For example, you’re correspondence will land in the inbox. Sender reputation is some companies will reject all mail with a sender reputation beneath determined by evaluating a few key characteristics: a specified threshold, while others may allow, AKA “whitelist,” IP addresses with Sender Scores above a certain threshold. 1. Complaints - How many emails from your IP address land in a prospect’s inbox, but are then marked as spam and deleted? In addition, your sender reputation may be used to throttle deliveries from an IP address to an inbox. IP addresses with higher reputations 2. Volume - Do you have a high number of complaints relative to may be permitted to send more messages to an inbox than IP the number of emails you send? Your aim is to send a reasonable addresses with low reputations. number of emails and limit the amount of complaints. What can you do? There are lots of online resources that let you 3. Reputation - How does your IP address compare to others? measure your sender reputation.