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In the email marketing world, the biggest enemy is the spam folder. After all, if you’re going to the trouble of creating engaging, eye-catching emails - you want to make sure that they’re getting in front of your target audience.
But, when you work for clients who often haven’t established the infrastructure needed to send out emails en masse, there’s a chance that you’re on a one way trip to spam-town. But why is that?
Email service providers find it hard to tell if an email account is legit - and often businesses will end up accidentally doing the same things as spam accounts or bots: sending out massive email blasts from an account that doesn’t appear to receive any organic engagement.
Warming up your account is a way to bypass this misconception. The general principle is that you need to use your new email address like a regular user for a little while in order to establish legitimacy, then you can get onto your marketing campaign without fear.
To help you out, we’ve put together our top 5 tips for warming up your email account properly.
1. Authenticate Your Account
Authenticating your account is the biggest step you can take to protect yourself against spam filters. This requires providing proof that your account is run by a real person (and not a bot). The key ways you can do this include:
SPF: Sender Policy Framework (SPF) is an authentication technique that creates a record in the DNS (Domain Name System), which lists down all the servers that are authorised to send emails on behalf of a domain.
DKIM: Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM) is an authentication method that adds a digital signature with the domain, which prevents email spoofing and makes the email reach the right place.
DMARC: DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance) records to use your SPF and DKIM records to assure the receiver’s ESP that no deceitful activities are associated with the email.
2. Send Individual Emails
The email warmup process starts by sending manual emails to friends and colleagues to build a conversation. This is most in line with what the top providers consider to be ‘normal’ use of the service, meaning that your account will appear more legitimate when you start sending out larger blasts.
Top tip: During this manual process, sending emails to various email services like Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, iCloud, Godaddy, Zoho, Aol, Exchange and Yandex will help build a good reputation at all the top email services provider’s spam filters.
3. Maintain Conversation Threads
To achieve maximum deliverability, creating engagement in the warm up emails is essential. The best way to do this is by starting conversations through email threads. Try sending threads to friends, colleagues, or even your own other email accounts. This step will feel a bit silly, but most bots don’t have the ability to create threads and reply to emails - making you, in comparison, look more legitimate.
4. Subscribe, Subscribe, Subscribe
To maximise legitimacy, you’ll also need to be receiving emails on your new account. The best way to do this is by subscribing to a minimum of 10-15 email lists and letting your inbox fill up. Trade publications and news sites are a good place to start, and e-commerce platforms also tend to send out regular email blasts.
5. Maintain Time Gaps Between Emails
Every email service provider has distinct algorithms to check how the emails are sent and received. Best practice is to avoid sending too many emails at once. Send a lot of emails continuously, it will affect the domain reputation.
Other Best Practices for Email Marketing
As we know, email marketing isn’t all about staying out of spam. You also need to capture your audience’s attention and make them interested in your product or service. But how can we do that?
We’ve collated a few of our favourite email tips to get you started and help you connect with your customers.
Personalised Subject Lines and Content
Customers are turned off when an email feels too sterile or sales-y. That’s why, even if you’re sending the same email to thousands of customers, you want to make sure that your copy has some personality to it.
For instance: ‘We’ve been DYING to show you our new range of perfumes’ is much more attractive than ‘New perfume launch this April’. Customers are more likely to feel a connection to a brand with a strong and unique voice, so make sure you’re investing in yours.
Limit Your Use of Links
If you’ve ever been personally victimised by SEO marketing before, you know that links are an important part of increasing your search engine ranking. But that’s not our goal when it comes to email marketing.
When you use too many links in an email, the first issue is that it can look spam-like and turn off new customers. The second issue is that having too many links in your email is a sign that your email’s purpose is unclear. Have a think about what you want to motivate your customers to do - to check out a new product, make a repurchase, or spread news about your company or industry?
There are some exceptions to this rule, such as if you’re trying to show off and link to a new range of products. Nevertheless, for best results, we recommend that you stick to a clear CTA button at the bottom of your email.
Limit Images, GIFs, and Videos
We all love making our emails look awesome, and engaging our audiences using multimodal solutions. The problem is, too many gifs, images, and videos can make your emails take forever to load, which can end up frustrating your customers. By sticking to a tasteful 1-2 visual elements, you can strike a better balance between fun and fast loading times.
Master Your Email Strategy
Are you looking for an agency that knows how to do good, no, great email marketing? Look no further.
As a digital agency at the cutting edge of the industry, we know all the tricks of the trade. Specialising in SEO, Email Marketing, and Google / Facebook Ads - we can help get your business in front of the right audience. Contact us today for a FREE digital audit.