Marketing By Email Deliverability Tips

The number one question I get about email campaign software and our new media rich email campaign system is how do you maximize deliver-ability to clients and customers. The number one step is to confirm that the people who ask for your information have actually requested to be on your list. You should be using a process called confirmed opt-in to send a unique link to the attempted subscriber when they request information. Before adding the person to your list they must click that unique link and verify that they are indeed the same person that owns the email address and requested to subscribe.

When requesting website visitors to opt-in ask for their primary email address instead of a free email address like Yahoo or Hotmail. Free emails tend to be throw away accounts and have a shorter lifetime than a primary ISP address.

Always promptly remove undeliverable addresses that bounce when you send email to them. The system I work with automatically does this for you but some systems require you do it manually. An address that bounces with a permanent error 2-3 times in a 30 day period should be removed from the list. ISP's track what percentage of your newsletters bounce and will block them if you attempt to continually deliver messages to closed email boxes.

When using email campaign software make sure to set HTML messages to allow for text formatting, multiple columns, images, and brand recognition is growing in popularity and is widely supported by most email client software. Most spam is also HTML formatted and thus differentiating between requested email and spam HTML messages can be challenging. A 2004 study shows that plain text messages are undeliverable 1.15% of the time and HTML only messages were undeliverable 2.3%. If sending HTML it is important to always send a plain text alternative message, also called text/HTML multi-part mime format.

Many ISP's filters base conditions on the content that appears within the message text.

Website URL: Research potential newsletter advertisers before allowing them to place ads in your newsletter issues. If they have used their website URL to send spam, just having their URL appear in your newsletter could cause the entire message to be filtered.

Words/phrases: Choose your language carefully when crafting a message. Avoid hot button topics often found in spam such as medication, loans, making money, and pornography. If you do need to use words that might be filtered, dont attempt to obfuscate words with extra characters or odd spelling, you will just make your messages appear more spam like.

Attachments: With viruses running rampant and spreading through the usage of malicious email attachments many users are wary of attached documents. Its often better to link to files via a website URL to reduce recipient fear of attachments and reduce the overall message size. Some email campaign software provides this as part of the service.

Relationships & White listing: Contact with major ISP's and email providers is important in letting them know about your requested subscriber email. Many large providers such as AOL and Hotmail have specific white listing programs and postmaster areas to ensure your email is delivered as long as you meet their policies in handling your opt-in list. In some cases like with the company I use this has already been taken care of.

Remember when using autoresponder software email deliver-ability is about ensuring requested opt-in email is delivered to the intended recipient. While no one tip will enable you to get 100% of your email delivered each one utilized as a group can go a long way to reaching that goal.

To learn more about the NewNewF5 Online Marketing system and NewF5 Technology visit a demonstration of the new F5 Email Campaign Software