Protect Your Email Sender Reputation With These 5 Tips

E-newsletters provide your business with a great, simple way to communicate with loyal customers. E-newsletters are relatively inexpensive to send and they’re a great way to inform your customers of changes to your business, provide special deals and sales, and announce new information about your business and/or products.

However, a challenge businesses face when sending e-newsletters is protecting their email sender reputation. Read on to learn more.

Why Sender Reputation is Important

Email sender reputation is what internet service providers (ISPs) use when determining what emails go to a person’s inbox and which ones are dumped directly into the spam folder. A poor email sender reputation means that all the time and effort you devoted to putting together the email has been wasted because very few of the recipients will see it. It’s best to think of your email sender reputation the same way you think of your credit rating, the higher the score, the better.

There are 3 primary things the ISPs examine while determining your email sender reputation:

• Bounce rate
• Spam trap hits
• Complaint rates

A poor email sender reputation results in the ISP blocking your business’s email address and directing each email you send straight into the recipient’s spam folder. The good news is that there are steps you can take to protect your business’s sender reputation.

Don’t Send Unsolicited Emails

Some businesses think that purchasing a list of email addresses and sending a bunch of unsolicited emails is a great way to reach potential customers. While it’s possible that sending a blast of unsolicited emails may result in one or two people checking out your website, in the long run, the practice does more harm than good. Most people who receive an unsolicited email either unsubscribe from the email list or worse, block the sender, which does severe damage to your email sender reputation.

Prime IP Filters With a High-Value Email

The best way to prime IP filters and convince them that the emails originating from your business’s address are desirable is by encouraging your subscribers to open the introductory email. Look for ways, such as including a promotion that’s only available via that email that results in a high open rate.

Send Your Marketing Emails from a Registered and Recognizable Subdomain Name

Using a registered subdomain name not only improves your email sender reputation, but also helps increase recognition amongst your subscribers, which in turn results in a higher open rate. You should only use that subdomain name for email marketing efforts.

Create Desirable Content

It’s in your best interest to only send relevant email to your customers. When each email newsletter you send has a great deal of useful information in it, your customer is far more likely to open it, and frequently opened emails are good for your sender reputation. The best way to ensure a high open rate is limiting the frequency of emails you send, a relevant weekly email is far more useful marketing tool than daily emails that are instantly transported to the trash folder. The open rate increases when the emails consistently have information about new products, exciting opportunities, or access to a special promotion.

Set Up an Email Verification Program

Perhaps most importantly, it’s vital to ensure you’re using an email verification program to protect your sender reputation. Did you know that over 15 percent of emails used in marketing lists are invalid? And when you send your marketing emails to an invalid address, not only are you wasting your marketing dollars, but you’re also negatively impacting your email sender reputation.

Thankfully, there’s Validity BriteVerify. Our email verification API can be added in minutes to anywhere you collect customer data – from web forms to landing pages and mobile devices to Point-of-Sale systems (POS) – and instantly validates the emails you collect. And to clean the email marketing list you already have, there’s our email list verification service. Simply drag your drag and drop your email list into the window or import it from your Email Service Provider (ESP), and we’ll show you the total number of emails valid and invalid, as well as the dollars that the invalid emails are costing you. After verification is completed, you can download your list, or automatically unsubscribe invalid and risky emails from your campaigns.

Once you’ve implemented these tips into your email marketing campaign, you’ll not only improve your overall email sender reputation, but you’ll also enjoy a steady stream of traffic that originates from your newsletter subscriber list. To learn more about starting an email verification program, visit contact Validity BriteVerify by clicking here.