Improving Your Email Deliverability - Getting Past the Email Provider
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To get past the spam blockers, you should follow best practices. A lot of them will already be part of your SOP (standard operating procedure) but you can go down the check list and see whether you have missed anything.
Ask for confirmation
Send an email asking the client to confirm subscription, especially if it is a paid subscription package. This will engender commitment in the user, which will translate to your emails getting opened by the user.
Request to be added to the address book
This is tricky, but it can be done, especially if you emails come addressed as if they are from individuals. But even if they do not, a politely worded request could do wonders. You could ask the user to add you to his/her address book; this way, you are sure you will never be blocked by the email provider's spam blocker.
Have a working unsubscribe link
Without it, major email providers will not let you into their customers' inboxes. However, unless your email campaign never passed the Stonehenge stage, I believe this part will be covered.
Have your street address on the email
Policing online is currently in a state of flux, but as your email campaign gets larger, this will change. To avoid legal complications, put your offline office address on all your emails.
Looking to the future
There will be some protocols that will become standards for deliverability to inboxes in the next few years. Yahoo has always led the campaign against spam, closely followed by Hotmail. But the following protocols are not yet strictly enforced due to the fact that they have not become standard practice among email senders. However, considering the weight of the institutions backing them (Yahoo, Cisco and Microsoft), they could very well be required for deliverability in the next few years.
Authentication
Email authentication is fast becoming a standard just two years after its introduction, as email providers use it and sometimes (like Hotmail) send notifications to their users if an email cannot be authenticated.
About 35 percent of emails being sent are authenticated, according to E-mail Senders & Providers Coalition (ESPC). As big email providers lobby harder in order to fight spam, this percentage will become larger. Positioning yourself by joining the party will assure that you do not have to rush it when it becomes a standard for deliverability.
There are currently two protocols: Microsoft’s sender ID framework and Domain Keys Integrated Mail supported by Yahoo and Cisco. The protocols are complementary to each other. According to Craig Spiezle, director of the technology care and safety group at Microsoft, companies will probably choose to implement both solutions.
Now after getting past the email providers vetting systems, are you prepared for the user’s personal vetting system?
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