E-commerce Link : Don’t Tarnish Your Reputation!

Email deliverability best practices that marketers can’t afford to ignore when their reputations are on the line

What Marketers Can Do to Improve Deliverability Rates
First, marketers should examine their email metrics by ISP. Most email service providers make it easy to look at this data. You may find that results are good for most ISPs, but there may be one or two ISPs where you see underperformance. This is a starting point. If there is an isolated problem, you can come up with a strategy to address the issue.

Second, and most importantly, you will want to examine your inactives. Those who have not opened or clicked on emails in a four-month or longer timeframe could penalize you, particularly if you have a high percentage of inactives. You may have a big problem if more than 40 percent of your recipients are inactive.

It is important to implement a reactivation strategy. There are many ways to develop a win-back plan and increase your potential for trouble-free delivery. Here are some ideas:

• Provide the ability to reduce frequency in your preference center. It is better to preserve the right to communicate once a month than to lose individuals or have them dormant.

• Ask readers to update their preferences. If you send different types of emails or have topic-specific emails, let them tell you what is of most interest to them.

• Offer a welcome back incentive that is directed only to inactives.

• Decide to communicate less often with this segment.

• Analyze demographics, firmographics and the acquisition source. Can you discern any patterns? For example, if a good amount of your list came from contests, perhaps they are not interested in your emails.

• Mail a postcard, because a different marketing channel might strengthen your connection.

• Send on different days of the week when they might be more receptive.

• Try different styles in your email's subject line.

• Test different formats. It's possible that recipients are reading your emails on a mobile device and they don't display well in this environment.

And, when all else fails, send consumers an email telling them they will be removed from your list unless they indicate they would like to remain. After all, although the cost of sending email is low, you are still paying to be in touch with everyone on your list. Let's say that you have 100,000 inactives on your list and you pay $0.005 to send emails and you send 10 emails per month, which results in a cost of $5,000 a month or $60,000 a year to send to inactives. They are dead weight and do nothing to drive traffic or sales. Moreover, your metrics will improve as will your deliverability.

Email reputation is a complex topic and I've only touched on some of the high points. But, for some additional help, check out the free online tool offered by Return Path's SenderScore.org. It requires registration and will give you a quick report card of your SenderScore reputation.

Reggie Brady is president of Reggie Brady Marketing Solutions, a direct and email marketing consultancy. Reach her at (203) 838-8138 or reggie@reggiebrady.com.

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