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You want your emails to succeed, but if nobody sees them, how can they get engagement? A dwindling email deliverability percentage means your email campaigns will flounder. Conversely, enhanced email deliverability means a higher chance of your emails achieving what you envision.
Business emails can have various objectives and goals. Emails can make a sale, inform, or provide an update. There are also transactional emails that update customers on shipping dates or remind them of appointments or deadlines.
All emails rely on one overlooked factor — being seen. If you send an email, will it show up?
Good email deliverability makes all the difference. We’ll give you three ways to increase your email deliverability so that your emails achieve your goals.
What is email deliverability?
First, it’s essential to understand that although email delivery and email deliverability sound similar, they differ.
Email deliverability is the percentage of emails that land in the inbox — not the spam folder.
Email delivery tells you how many emails reached a mailbox, whether that’s inbox or spam. An email is technically delivered if it lands in spam, but you obviously don’t want your emails to go there.
Some email service providers (ESPs) will tell you what percentage of emails are delivered, but it’s not the metric to focus on. Focusing on email deliverability means someone at least has the option to open your email because it’s in front of them.
Some marketers forget this simple truth: You can’t read what you can’t see.
#1 Increase email deliverability through email validation
Why does email deliverability falter? What causes those emails you work so hard on to waste away in the junk folder?
The answer often lies in your sender reputation declining. Everyone with an email address has a sender reputation – a trust score used by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to separate the spammers from legitimate senders.
Not practicing regular email hygiene is the biggest culprit for your sender reputation decreasing. Fortunately, your sender reputation and email deliverability will both enjoy an improvement when you validate your contacts regularly. Email validation services, also called email checkers, offer two methods that will help you land in the inbox.
Bulk email validation
The first line of defense for your list is to eliminate all bad email addresses and keep the valid ones. Some email addresses that were once fully functional become invalid when the user gets a new email address. If you keep emailing an abandoned email address, you’ll get a bounce, and your deliverability takes a hit.
So, here are the simple steps you can take to enjoy better email list health and more clicks:
>>> Find a trustworthy email validation service. It should have a solid reputation and a commitment to privacy and security.
>>> Upload your entire email list to the email validation platform. Once it identifies the problematic or toxic email addresses, you should be done with them.
>>> Get all bad data off of your list as soon as possible. You’ll enjoy improved deliverability and, with it, more success.
Real-time email validation
If you have several sign-up forms where people can subscribe to your emails, you’re following an excellent marketing strategy. But here’s the thing: even if you’re practicing routine bulk email validation, harmful or erroneous emails will get on your list if all your forms are unprotected.
The solution is to connect an email validation API to every form you have that asks for an email address. It will check the email addresses in real time. If someone uses a disposable email address or even makes a typo, a prompt informs them to enter a different email address. Your list is kept safe. When you use bulk email validation and a real-time email checker, you’ll prevent most of the deliverability problems that will come your way.
#2. Prune unengaged subscribers to boost email deliverability
Some email addresses on your list are healthy in every way, but they have one issue. The people these email addresses belong to don’t engage with your messages. Yes, their email address is in use and has no issues. However, this subscriber just isn’t clicking on your emails. Keeping people on your email list who don’t interact with your emails may seem harmless. However, they’ll diminish your email deliverability little by little.
So cut them loose. Eliminate those half-hearted subscribers from your list. Having a lot of subscribers may feel like an impressive and worthy goal, but what good are people idling on your list? Would you keep texting someone who never opens your messages? Probably not.
If you aren’t ready to part with those lackluster subscribers, you could always segment them off of your list and try to re-engage them. Perhaps offering them an unbeatable deal will bring them back into the fold? Try it and see, but ignoring the problem of inactive subscribers doesn’t do a favor to you or anyone.
#3. Send good emails on time
You probably started your email quest with high hopes and a vision of sending quality emails that your audience would appreciate. If you have no desire to hit a quality threshold or send meaningful content, then you probably shouldn’t endeavor to attempt email marketing.
People’s inboxes are clogged. If you’re not sending them an email they want to open and interact with, you’re just sending to send. That’s not the mindset that will give you good results, and you certainly won’t be doing your email deliverability any favors.
Does a company get a Super Bowl ad just to get one? No. They’re trying to simultaneously delight the viewer and create a positive result for the business. The best business emails follow that framework.
It’s not enough to send outstanding emails every now and then. You should also send at regular intervals. You will protect and enhance your email deliverability by following a schedule, and your readers will come to anticipate your emails.
A great woman once told me that success comes down to doing what you said you would do when you say you will. If you can do that with your email marketing, your emails have a fighting chance. The more ways you can strive for excellence with your emails, the more success you’ll enjoy.
