The spam folder is a cold, lonely place for your emails to end up. Once they land in the spam folder, they’re surrounded by junk, with no other quality emails to keep them company, and unlikely to ever catch a reader’s eye. We’ve written before about ways to avoid the spam folder in email marketing, but today, let’s talk about something a little different: a more content-oriented approach to not only improving deliverability, but also ensuring better open rates and fewer unsubscribes.
A content-focused approach to email marketing understands why emails end up in the spam folder. There’s the more obvious reasons, such as subject lines full of commonly-flagged words (“free”, “winning”, and so on) or an excessive use of Caps-Lock or exclamation points. But there’s also human nature: if your recipients don’t know who you are, or can’t figure out how to unsubscribe, they may just mark your emails as spam themselves. Here’s how to keep that from happening.
1. Introduce Yourself
Have you ever received a marketing email from a company you didn’t recognize? Don’t be that marketer. Make sure that the first email a new contact receives from you introduces your company, and reminds them how they got onto your list—just in case they didn’t realize they were signing up, or in case they have forgotten.
This is also a great opportunity to explain what they can expect to receive, whether that’s a weekly digest, monthly specials, or a daily update. The more specific you can be, the better.
2. Keep Content Relevant and Engaging
Here’s the core of a content-focused email marketing strategy: good content! If your emails and messaging are relevant to your audience, and interesting enough to pique the recipients’ interest, you’re highly unlikely to be marked as spam.
So, if a certain type of content hasn’t been performing well, reconsider your segmentation strategy, or lay that messaging to rest while you find something more engaging (and therefore, more effective.)
3. Make It Easy to Unsubscribe
Last, but certainly not least, make sure it’s easy for disinterested or disgruntled contacts to unsubscribe from your list. It’s the law. And if your content is engaging, your readers likely will not unsubscribe if they’re the right fit for your product or service.
At RedCappi, we believe in better email marketing. That’s why we help you get in touch with your audience. Built-in deliverability testing and list management features ensure that your campaigns get to the right inboxes, A/B testing provides insight into the most relevant messaging, and easy-to-use dashboards give you insight. That’s just a taste of what we can do—for more information, please contact us.