Two Easy Ways to Improve Email Deliverability

Even with the popularity of SMS marketing, email marketing is still KING for most small businesses. But how do you navigate the rough waters of email marketing so your emails end up in the inbox and not the spam folder?

There are two important things you want to know about: Email Validation and Opt-In Email.

Having a bunch of email addresses is not the point. Having email addresses that are validated and opted-in is the holy grail for email marketers.

Let’s start with email validation.

Email validation is a process where each one of your email addresses is scrutinized before the email is actually sent.

First in the validation process are the checks to make sure there are no typos, and everything is spelled right, and formatted correctly. (You would be surprised how many people try to send emails to Gmail or Yahoo!).

Then the email is checked for likelihood that it will get delivered. Is this a real domain name? Has this email address been delivered before (based on billions of emails sent)? Is this a phony email address designed to trap spammers? Is this a role based email (emails not intended to for personal use)?

By sending only validated emails, your overall deliverability will increase, your sending reputation will skyrocket, your open rates go higher, and you won’t be wasting marketing efforts with a bunch of useless and often harmful email addresses.   

You should never send an email unless the email address has been validated. If you do, you are hurting your sender score, and increasing the chances that all of your emails will be by-passing the inboxes and heading straight for the spam folders.

Now let’s talk about opted-in emails.

When someone gives you permission to send them emails, those emails are said to be opted-in. Permission can be given verbally, in writing, or most commonly when someone fills out a Landing Page form requesting information from you. 

An email list of people who have opt-ed in is far more valuable than a list of emails from random people.

You’ve heard people say: “I have a million people on my email list”. Wow! Impressive? Well…no. That’s a person who will be wasting a lot of time and money, marketing to a useless list. 

Then you will hear them say: “Well, if just one person on that list does business with me, then it was all worth it.” Wrong again. By sending to this random list of names, this foolish business owner is ruining her sending reputation and making it almost impossible to ensure important emails to real customers end up in the inbox. 

Making sure all your email addresses are validated and opted-in is a hassle. Choose a system like AllClients who will do all the heavy lifting for you.