You’ve written an email in InfusionSoft.
And the message is a thing of beauty, packed with value. The CTA? It’s so natural; it slides right in. Your products or services are also worth purchasing or availing of.
You’re proud to send your content to your current and potential customers. So, that’s what you do. You even took the time to split your list into the right segments.
You’ve got a few subscribers emailing back. Job done, right? Does this mean you move on to the next email? …
Well, not yet. If you want to land in the inbox most of the time and achieve more conversions, you have to improve the email deliverability of your InfusionSoft emails.
How? Simply follow the steps below.
How Do You Improve the Email Deliverability of Your InfusionSoft Emails
Email deliverability refers to how good the InfusionSoft platform is in sending your emails where you intended them to land – the inbox. To improve the email deliverability of your InfusionSoft emails, do the following:
1. Send with custom authentication
While email authentication is optional, it can help you grow and maintain an engaged audience. And, as you know, email engagement is the holy grail of email deliverability.
The reason why you should send with custom authentication is simple: Inbox Service Providers (ISPs), like Hotmail, Yahoo, and Gmail, want to ensure that the marketing emails you send to your subscribers are legitimate. These ISPs use security protocols and processes to help filter spam and malicious users.
To authenticate your email, you can configure your messages’ DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) signatures and authenticate your IP addresses with Sender Policy Framework (SPF).
To understand more about domain authentication, see SPF, DKIM, DMARC Explained [Infographic]
2. Don’t use URL shorteners
If you’ve seen links, like bit.ly and t.co, that redirect you to some websites, they’re called URL shorteners. They reduce the character count of a link, provide valuable click data, and beautify what could have been a clunky-looking and long URL.
These link shorteners are significant when considering the character count, but they’re not recommended in email marketing. Why? It’s because spammers use them too.
Spammers use URL shorteners to mask the true link that it redirects to. So, if you want to improve your email deliverability, avoid using URL shorteners. But if you like how a shortened URL looks, don’t use a general-purpose public link shortener. Instead, use a private one.
You may even use HTML to transform any picture or text into a link. HTML handles the layout and structure of the emails. And your inbox provider will render your HTML into attractive messages.
3. Reduce spam complaints
Spam complaints can happen even to legitimate email marketers who send permission-based newsletters. However, you can absolutely reduce or maintain your spam complaints at an acceptable level to improve your InfusionSoft email deliverability.
Recent research demonstrated that 20% of email deliverability issues are caused by spam complaints. These reports by email recipients directly signal to mailbox providers that the emails are unwanted.
The spam complaint rate is calculated by the number of reported junk or spam complaints out of the number of emails sent. To reduce spam complaints, regularly check your email list for malformed email domains (example: Hotmall.com). We also suggest you use a confirmed opt-in process and provide check boxes on your opt-in form.
And since recognition is a complaint driver, let your subscribers see the connection between the brand and what they subscribed to. This is possible by branding your “From” line in the domain and using such consistently in every email. Make sure to also use the design and style of the email that is consistent with your brand.
4. Automate your email marketing
Email marketing has already come a long way, but it still has much to offer. It can help you grow your list and engage more with your subscribers.
However, if you’re working with limited resources, budget -or both- it can be challenging to ensure you cover all email marketing areas. That’s why automating some of those daily tasks is a big help and will improve the email deliverability of your InfusionSoft emails.
Some use cases include sending welcome emails when a client signs up for a list, a quick reminder that the customer has placed an item in their cart but did not check out, or simple product recommendations after visiting your site.
Email marketing automation removes the repetitive tasks of your team’s list, allowing you to focus on more valuable tasks, like responding to your customers’ queries.
5. Check your sender reputation
People do business with those they trust, like, and know. The same applies to email marketing. Emails are more likely to be delivered to the recipients’ inboxes if they have high sender scores.
An email sender score is comparable to a credit score, but you’re dealing with email providers instead of banks. The metric sits on a scale of 1 to 100.
ISPs will automatically accept any email that falls above a particular score. The lower your sender reputation score, the harder it’ll be for your business to get into someone’s inbox. In fact, about 83% of all emails worldwide do not land in the inbox due to a poor sender reputation.
To check your email sender’s reputation, you can visit SenderScore.org. Input your contact information and IP address and submit it to get your score. Other tools that offer reputation scores are TrustedSource, Barracuda Central, and Google Postmaster Tools.
Fortunately, your sender’s reputation is in your hands. Applying email marketing best practices will help you score well as far as sending reputation is concerned, and your emails will be more conversion worthy.
InboxAlly is an all-in-one tool that can help boost your sender’s reputation and deliverability. Click here to see how it works.
6. Maintain proper IP allocation
IP allocation means the IP address used when the InfusionSoft email delivery platform sends an email to the receiving email service providers. Maintaining proper IP allocation will maximize the results of your email marketing efforts.
The reason is that as your email program grows, you will need the right proper email infrastructure. Let’s say you reach 25,000 daily emails, then you would want to send marketing emails on a dedicated IP address.
You must also properly warm up the dedicated IP address before sending campaigns to your entire email list. Doing so will help gain the trust of the email service provider to whom you send emails.
7. Provide an email preference center
An email preference center is a page that allows subscribers to choose the kind of emails they get from you (like the frequency and type of content) aside from the option to unsubscribe. This way, your recipients can opt down rather than opt-out.
But don’t confuse email preference centers to unsubscribe pages, which ask for feedback and usually remind people to re-subscribe.
How can an email preference center maximize email deliverability, you ask? Well, it improves email engagement and drives brand loyalty. The demand for relevant content can lead to customers looking forward to receiving or sharing your marketing emails.
One tip to take your preference center to the next level is to simplify the process. Avoid forcing your recipients to search high and low for your preference center. Include a link that invites your readers to update their email preferences. You can use CTAs, like “Tell us what you want” or “Update your preferences.”
You can likewise gather email preferences upfront during the onboarding process. You can ask them to fill out a web form or show them a list of email choices once they press the “subscribe” button.
8. Create enticing yet non-spammy subject lines
The subject line of an email often determines if the email will be opened or will end up in the spam folder. So, ensure your email subject line is optimized for your target audience.
You may want to use a short and sweet subject line (under 40 characters) to improve email open rates. You can also use questions to pique their curiosity or grab their attention. Some people respond best to subject lines with a clear command or direct call to action, such as “Join us at the -” Add the event in your subject line to deliver a clear message.
Lastly, avoid spam words in your subject lines. Words that are aggressive “salesy” are usually marked as spam. You should likewise avoid using loud punctuations, like multiple exclamation points and all caps, and overtly promotional terms, like “Free” and “Buy Now.”
Rather than focusing on promotion, offer your expertise in the industry or share data that your readers will find valuable.
For more on how to write the best email subject lines, check our guide on the 3 Key Elements of Irresistible Email Subject Lines.
9. Optimize body content
One of the best ways to improve email deliverability is to keep your email body compelling and attractive.
Our suggestion is to use the AIDA model:
- Attention – Is it enticing enough to hook your reader? A shocking statistic? A controversial statement? A provocative question?
- Interest – After grabbing your reader’s attention, keep their interest. Do you share the benefits of your product or solution? How does it improve your customer’s life?
- Desire – Marketers need to create a desire in their reader’s hearts for them to buy or convert into customers. How will your product or service change their life for the better?
- Action – Lastly, encourage your customers to take action.
As far as appearance, use fonts that are commonly used across all email clients and ISPs. Easy-to-read fonts include Verdana, Arial, and Helvetica.
Oh, last thing: Proofread and send out test emails because subscribers and spam filters don’t look kindly on typographical errors.
10. Declutter your list
If you have many inactive subscribers, they can dramatically affect your email deliverability, as they offset your engagement rate. This is why decluttering your list is essential. Removing invalid email addresses and re-confirming inactive subscribers can declutter your list.
And sending lots of newsletters that get unopened will harm your email deliverability. The longer you keep unengaged and inactive users on your list, the more you risk damaging your deliverability rates and sender reputation.
Providing subscribers with an easy and clear way to unsubscribe from your newsletters can automate this process.
11. Make it easy to unsubscribe
Unsubscription is one of the conversion rates that you don’t want to optimize. It’s an action that causes you to lose traffic, money, and subscribers. But reducing the friction can improve your email deliverability.
The reason is that excellent customer service gives people what they want in the most helpful and efficient way possible. Keep in mind that every person you an email has the power to report any of your messages to the internet service providers as spam.
Hiding the opt-out button in small print and the corner of your email campaign is a bad idea. If they can’t find the unsubscribe link, they will likely press the spam button.
Just because you allowed people to unsubscribe doesn’t mean the relationship is over. You may provide a new window that shows the user that their action was successful.
This process allows users to re-subscribe if they make a mistake. You can also put your social media icons in the said window to enable users to stay updated about your brand.
12. Measure the performance of your marketing campaigns
In today’s competitive email marketing landscape, companies that are not using analytics and data are fumbling. If the management doesn’t have reports and data for better business decisions, frustration grows.
The good news is that data is now more accessible than ever. This allows businesses to measure the performance of their marketing campaigns. That’s why the well-known saying, “If you can measure it, you can manage it.”
So, check your performance metrics, such as click-through rate, spam reports, bounce rate, and unsubscribe rate. It’s also important to know the recipient’s engagement level in your emails. Once you gather this important data, it’s easy to improve your email deliverability and increase your email marketing ROI.
How often you measure your email marketing campaigns depends on various factors, including your objectives, specific goals, and timeframe. However, based on a survey, 43% of companies measure email marketing success at least once a week, while 32% reported they track email marketing performance once a month.
Get Better Inbox Placement Today
Plenty of moving parts is involved in your InfusionSoft emails’ successful deliverability.
And the huge ones are those we mentioned above: email infrastructure, links in emails, bounces and spam complaints, marketing automation, sender reputation, proper IP allocation, email preference center, subject line, valuable content, segmentation/ clean list, audience’s permission, and key deliverability metrics.
By following the guide above, you should see an improvement in the deliverability of your InfusionSoft emails to your target audience.
If you need help taking your email deliverability to the next level, our team of email experts is here for you. Visit our website to learn more.