1. Limit the Recipients list
First and most important thing is to have a small list of recipients send multiple mails instead of adding too many people in single list. - it should be to have a CLEAN list.
That means only keeping subscribers who actually want to hear from you. So if someone hasn’t opened any of your emails in the last 60 days, it might be time to say goodbye.
Or at very least, send them a ‘re-engagement’ email to let them know they’re about to be removed. If they open it, great! They’re now considered an active subscriber.
If they don’t open it within 7 days, remove them (or export them…. I’ll explain more in a moment)
2. Build And Maintain Your Relationship
Most people think of this as being tedious, but it doesn’t have to be.
Just make sure you follow these general guidelines:
- ALWAYS welcome people to your brand. Tell them who you are, and what they can expect from you
- Don’t make the focus of every email a promotion. It’s okay to have an affiliate link in every email, but make sure you’re speaking to your audience, and not just shoving offers in their face
- Keep them updated. If you haven’t spoken to your list for a few weeks, that’s okay. When you email next, let them know what you’ve been up to, and what they can expect moving forward
- Ask for feedback. This can be in the form of a direct reply back to your email, or to a survey containing multiple choice questions. Maybe even add a section at the end where they can express their thoughts/opinions/desires.
If you have subscribers that haven’t opened your emails in 60 days, and haven’t responded to your ‘re-engagement’ emails, it’s time to remove them.
But rather than just deleting them, you could export them first, and import them into a completely separate autoresponder service (eg. If your main list is on Aweber, import into a cheap MailChimp account).
Then call this your “Junk Bucket”. You can email promotions to this list, without too much focus on the relationship.
At worst, they’ll continue to be unresponsive. At best, you could squeeze a few sales out of subscribers that were considered dead previously.
3. Craft Your Emails Carefully
There’s a million things you can do to create the perfectly deliverable email… but it’ll most likely look like junk your audience won’t want to read.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t maximize your deliverability while also spreading the message you want heard.
Start by ensuring you don’t cram too many links into your email. Keep it to a maximum of 3 wherever possible.
Next (this is important for Gmail especially), make sure you modify the standard footer added to your emails by your autoresponder.
For example, change “Unsubscribe from this mailing list” to “Unsubscribe”, and send yourself a test email to check for improvement.
The reason this is effective is because email providers like Gmail look at phrases like “mailing list”, and often end up classifying an email as promotional as a result.
Finally, ensure the overall tone of your email is personal. Write as though your speaking to one person, rather than a crowd. Not only will this resonate well with the complex sorting algorithms, but it’ll also make your subscribers feel a personal connection to you and your brand.
4. Use Images Sparingly
One of the biggest ‘promo’ flags for email providers is the use of images in emails.
If you have just one image, there’s a fair chance you’ll be sent to the Promotions tab.
Use two images, and you can pretty much guarantee it’ll be seen as a promotion.
More than three images? You’re probably going straight to the Spam folder, which is also a big black mark against your future chances of reaching the Inbox.
If you’re going to use any images at all, it’s extremely important that you test the effect it has… which we’ll get to shortly…
5. Avoid Signature-Cramming
Don’t be one of those people who crams their life story into their email sign-offs.
Keep it short and sweet. If you’ve welcomed your subscribers well, and built a great relationship with them, there’s no need to continually educated them on boring details in every email.
It’s filler junk, and can affect the way inbox algorithms handle your messages.
It’ll keep your lines to a max with of 58 characters (or whatever you set it too), and your subscribers will love you for it!
6. Test Test Test!
The most important recommendation I can give, is to TEST your emails.
Don’t just test some. And don’t just test once.
Test multiple times, to multiple email services (Gmail/Hotmail/Yahoo/etc), and keep fine-tuning until you can see your emails are starting to land where they below.
If you’re constantly landing in Spam or the Promotions tab, retry the 6 points above, and test again.
If it’s still not happening, look at your email as though you’re a subscriber, and be ultra critical.
Are you making unrealistic promises? Are you talking about “making lots of money?”
Tweak a few sentences, test again, and you’ll often find even just the smallest change can have a dramatic effect.
Finally, if you want to skip all the tedious manual testing, you could use a paid service like Glock Apps.
They’ll give you a list of email addresses to import into your autoresponder.
Then before sending your campaign, simply run a test to the list of emails they provide, and check your results.
