Get Your Emails Delivered

Barb Drozdowich

• Publisher: Bakerview Consulting
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781988821320
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Publishing
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Do you struggle to understand how to communicate with readers effectively and efficiently?

Are you frustrated by newsletters not being delivered?

Do you feel like you are shouting into the void and no one is listening?

Author Consultant Barb Drozdowich, turns her sights to explaining email deliverability in this down-to-earth book. She tackles the topics that many experts gloss over and takes them to level that anyone can understand.

Get Your Emails Delivered attacks subjects such as:

What are Spam filters and firewalls and why should you care?

How to troubleshoot deliverability issues so you can reach more readers

How can you increase reader engagement with your newsletter

Get Your Emails Delivered is a part of a 3-book box set entitled The Complete Mailing List Toolkit. This box set takes a holistic approach to the subject of communicating with readers.

Pick up this book and let Barb share her extensive knowledge of communicating with readers with you.

Let this book make a difference in your understanding today!

1

Define Deliverability

I think people generally assume that email is just automatically delivered to the address that we send it to. My research tells me this is not true. As I stated in the Introduction, about 20% of all opt-in emails never make it to the inbox. You'll notice that I specify opt-in emails. In this book we are specifically talking about emails that are newsletters, so that is what we’re mostly interested in. But as an aside, studies show that newsletter delivery generally is not 100%.

When we're talking about deliverability we need to be clear what is meant by that word. A quote from Email Delivery Best Practices Guide – a part of the MailChimp help documentation.

“Successful email delivery is your message arriving in the inbox of the recipient as intended. Email delivery failure is when your message is either validated to the junk or spam folder, or completely blocked by an Internet service provider.”

What are bounced emails? A bounced email is one that isn’t successfully sent for a variety of reasons. Bounces can be classified as either soft or hard bounces. A hard bounce happens when an email is sent to an email address that doesn’t exist for some reason. Either it did and has since been closed or there is an error in the email address resulting in no known address. There’s no easy recovery from a hard bounce other than contacting the person and requesting a new email address.

A soft bounce, on the other hand, can be easier to recover from. A soft bounce can just be a notification that there is a bit of difficulty in delivery but it will resolve itself.

There are a variety of reasons for a newsletter to bounce - hard or soft. Here are the most common ones:

1) A non-existent email address - if an email account has been closed or deleted the email will get a hard bounce. This type of bounce occurs when subscribers close old email accounts or move jobs causing their work email address to be deleted. It is also possible that people give a false email address or make a mistake when submitting at a live event - perhaps filling out a paper form (although double opt-in will eliminate those errors)

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2) Undeliverable email - notes in this category indicate that either the recipient’s server is temporarily unavailable or was overloaded or under maintenance. This type of bounce may be recoverable from if the issue is temporary - as in maintenance - but if the email server is gone for good, the email will then hard bounce.

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3) Mailbox is full - this is a common error for limited free email accounts. There is a cap on storage and the person has exceeded it. This can mean that the person has abandoned the address or they have maybe gone on holidays and will empty the mailbox when they get back.

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4) Vacation/out of office reply - Unlike other bounce categories, these emails are usually delivered. Of course, someone who never returns from a vacation, will eventually be considered to be a hard bounce.

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5) Blocked email - if your email address, or your email marketing service’s email address has been blocked by the recipient’s email program, the block needs to be requested to be removed. It isn’t unusual for government or schools to have really tight reigns when it comes to receiving emails resulting in this type of a bounce.

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6) Denied by the Firewall or Spam Filter - as we’ll learn in this book, the recipient’s email provider may decide that your note doesn’t pass muster and is denied entry. This will result in a bounce as well. Sometimes the recipient adding your email address to their contact list will help, but there could be something in one newsletter’s content that the firewall or spam filter finds objectionable and that situation can change for the next newsletter.

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Bounce rates should be monitored - sudden increases should be paid attention to rather than accepted as normal. There will always be a certain number of bounces from a large list, but sudden changes are not normal.

2

Define Spam

The word spam is used in many different ways by many different people. Let's talk about some of these definitions. Typically the word spam refers to an unwanted email, an email that arrives in the inbox that wasn't requested. It can also refer to an email that contains content that is unwanted or offensive. I'm sure you know that type of email that I'm talking about. It contains advertisements for male enhancement products, casual hookups, and the like.

As I’m sure you are aware, there is the legal definition of spam as well as the common definitions of spam. And clearly, we overuse the word spam. As I stated above, the word spam can be used to refer to unwanted email as well as no longer wanted email but also it can refer to email that is clearly sent out in large numbers - the blanket type of mass marketed email. So by that definition newsletters can be spam. The same email is sent out to large numbers of people - that’s by definition spam.

However, what makes newsletters more acceptable is that the recipients have opted into the newsletter as opposed to receiving the email against their will. But this helps us understand the actions of recipients of emails or newsletters. Most email programs have a button that can be clicked to indicate that the email is junk or spam. This really doesn’t do anything definitive to stop the email from arriving, but many people don’t actually know that. What it does is send a message through the email firewall to your email marketing service registering a complaint. This complaint can harm the deliverability of your emails or newsletters, and if enough of them are received, you can get sanctioned by your email marketing service.

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One of the things that we will talk about shortly is the fact that it is a good idea to train or educate your readers. Let them know up front how to stop getting your newsletters if they no longer want them. Make it easy for them to do it gracefully. Don’t leave them without an option other than to click the junk or spam button.

3

What is User Engagement?

User engagement - This is a term that is often just thrown about. When it comes to email, however it refers to if, and how, your readers engage with your newsletter. The thing is, the big email systems monitor how much the people who receive your newsletters interact with them. Do they open them, do they spend time reading them, do they scroll down to the bottom, do they ever reply or do they file them away in a folder for safekeeping? Do they add you to their contact list if they have Gmail? Do they drag your emails into their primary inbox tab? Or do your emails just sit unopened and unloved?

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Every different email provider has its own way of judging whether emails are being engaged with. And no one outside of those providers actually know what’s being looked for. But generally speaking, if overall your emails aren’t being opened and read then it’s going to be harder and harder for you to get your newsletter into the primary inbox in the future. Generalities can be made, however, how do you increase engagement? You can start by asking people to add your email address to their contact list.

In email delivery terms low open rates are a clear signal to the powers that be that your recipients are not engaged with you or your brand or your content. That lack of engagement is a factor in the delivery of future emails and can even lead to your campaigns being blocked. Think of it as a snowball threatening to become an avalanche.

Many people suggest deleting contacts if they don’t seem to be engaging. There are also experts that don’t believe in doing this. Consider the buying cycle of books. Isn’t there a saying that a book/product has to be seen or mentioned seven times before a person will buy? Perhaps that time hasn’t come. Perhaps your readers need more encouragement.

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We will talk about methods to increase engagement, but on the surface, periodically send out a reminder to your readers to add your email address to their contact list or if they have Gmail to drag the newsletter out of the promotions column.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Note of Thanks
• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• 1. Define Deliverability
• 2. Define Spam
• 3. What is User Engagement?
• 4. Email Legalities
• 5. Domain based or paid email addresses
• 6. Gmail Concerns
• 7. The Journey of an Email
• 8. Sending Server Reputation
• 9. Receiving Servers
• 10. What are examples of Email Marketing Services and what to look for in an Email Marketing Service?
• 11. Why should you choose an Email Marketing Service?
• 12. What are open and click-through rates and Why are they important?
• 13. Email Programs
• 14. Strategies to improve Deliverability
• Bibliography
• Reader Group
• Afterword
• Glossary
• About the Author
• Also by Barb Drozdowich