Last week, we explored the basics of being the “Facebook:” the epitome of success, in your industry. We examined the importance of working with multiple email vendors. This week, we will dive deeper into the optimizations required to get there. But first thing’s first:
Look in the mirror
To understand where you currently stand, you can use senderscore.org, mail-tester.com, McAfee Trusted Source, or dyn.com/free-email-test/ to view your score.
Reputation is built upon many factors. Among them:
• Domain
• IP
• SPF
• DKIM
• Brand-awareness
• Interaction
Once you understand where you stand, you can start making optimizations to improve your reputation.
via email
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6 optimizations to improve reputation
1. Brand your “from” –adding your brand’s name in the FROM field reduces spam complains and increases open rates. Some senders do this by incorporating a real person’s name with the brand name and others just use the brand name as the FROM:
2. Sender Policy Framework (SPF) – When you implement an SPF, the receiving email servers can cross-check your domain name against the associated IP address, making you more trustworthy.
3. Be consistent – Creating an email marketing schedule (and sticking to it) makes sure that you do not have sporadic activity, which lowers your sending score.
4. Watch unsubs, spam reports, hard bounces, and blacklists
By sending regularly-scheduled, relevant, useful content to your opted-in list of subscribers, you will reduce your unsubscribe rate, your spam reporting incidents, and your inclusion in blacklist databases. Removing hard bounces from your list, and maintaining clean lists in general, improves your credibility.
5. Test your vendor
Test different vendors periodically and make sure that their reputation helps yours. Benchmark vendors against each other and optimize your strategy to use the right one for each campaign and segment.
Be a Jennifer (Don’t know who Jennifer is? Read last week’s post)
Making sure that your reputation is solid will pay off. It will increase your credibility and your deliverability.
Like you should never send a resume in haste, so should you never send an email campaign that is not polished and proofed. Be detail-oriented and attuned to your subscribers’ needs and your results will improve.
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