If you are conversant with an email deliverability strategy? You will agree that it is a complete and holistic means of getting the best out of the email marketing program.

Everything begins with developing a healthy connection with the potential recipients of your email.

When it comes to email marketing, sending a piece of valuable information is non-negotiable as it fosters the growing relationship between you and your contacts.

Also, it’s pertinent to understand whether people are engaging in your emails or not. By so doing, you can easily find whether to modify your email marketing strategy.

Undoubtedly, with an effective deliverability strategy, any business can develop trust with their clients.

Understanding What An Email Deliverability Strategy Looks Like

However, without understanding what the strategy looks like, you might end up beating around the bush. For this reason, it’s recommendable to understand the framework of ideal email deliverability entails.

Before then, it is worth noting that using the strategy might take some time, as with most things in life.

But you’ll surely have an idea of what to expect and what to consider as the best results from your email marketing strategy.

Now, let’s proceed!

Getting A Solid Email Deliverability Strategy For Your Business Using Six Elements

First off, every business owner or head of the marketing team must understand that email deliverability is a moving target.

In other words, it changes depending on the existing stage of your business development.

For instance, the email deliverability strategy for a new business may differ from an established enterprise.

Thus, a smart business firm needs to right-size its email marketing approach with its current stage and goals.

In short, it is about finding the balance between your business and email deliverability strategy.

Below are the six elements to find your balance.

1. An Express Consent Or Verifiable Permission

The first element is express consent. Trust is crucial for building a relationship with others, including your business clients.

Getting express consent means you get verifiable permission to send emails to the contacts on your email list. Your email contact list should have opted to receive your email.

Otherwise, the email marketing strategy is already faulty right from the start.

Among the means you can use to collect people’s emails include forms. Such a form must expressly request their consent.

You can get their consent by asking them to fill out a form or tick a box.

Alternatively, you can use an email confirmation link to ask for their consent after submitting their information on your website or form.

Express consent is the action of opting in by the user – the best practice of getting verifiable permission.

Sustain trust

To sustain the trust that you are trying to build, there is a need for transparency.

We often see companies sending a promotional email to clients who have purchased a good or service from a company – perhaps, the clients engaged in a contractual agreement with the firm.

Although it’s completely fine to send them messages, these clients haven’t expressly chosen to receive your emails.

This is implied consent and not express consent.

Therefore, if you have implied consent, you are best advised to secure express consent during the course of your business relationship with the clients.

As mentioned previously, you can use a confirmation link in an email sent to them at this stage.

Express Consent Is Necessary

Express consent is necessary because implied consent is often accompanied by extra considerations. In some cases, the implied consent may expire.

So, rather than trying to figure out what the consideration or condition responsible for the expiry might be, simply request express consent via a confirmation email.

Many firms fail in their email deliverability strategy because they didn’t differentiate implied consent from express consent.

Let’s share an example for better clarity.

Example:

Assuming you set up a Trade-show and collect the emails of every attendee.

It’s completely legit to send emails to the contacts.

However, be informed that you have only received an implied consent.

Thus, you should confirm their subscription by sending a message to get their express consent.

2. Utilize Double Opt-In

While talking about double opt-in, it’s all about the needs of your business.

A confirmatory opt-in may help affirm the subscriber’s email address after their submission or as they commence a partnership with your business.

This is important for two major reasons.

1. Firstly, double opt-in help verifies the ownership of the email address. Although this may appear trivial, it helps determine whether the email truly belongs to the owner and who they claim to be.
2. Secondly, it helps get an early email marketing certification engagement with your business and domain. In other words, this approach confirms the contact’s subscription, which is an early engagement with your business, as well as your first click-through.

By so doing, you’ll start building a connection with your email recipient right from the onset.

Successful email deliverability

In reality, successful email deliverability is also a matter of quality over quantity conversation.

Also, it depends largely on your business’s needs, which may not align with your goals directly.

For instance,

It is recommendable for a developing business to exercise a double opt-in.

This may help your funnel grow better than using a single opt-in.

The reason is that a confirmatory opt-in help finds you in a higher quality funnel as the contacts truly want to hear from you.

For a new enterprise, using double opt-in is recommendable but not mandatory.

3. Understand A High Hard Bounce Rate

If you notice that some groups are experiencing a high hard bounce rate, notice an upward trend in subscribers, or get spam reports occasionally.

It is better to move close to them and understand the elements behind the upward trend.

Such knowledge helps determine where you can modify your strategy and spend more time getting the best out of your email deliverability strategy.

For instance,

You can experience an upward trend in the number of unsubscribes.

Although you won’t be penalized for it, it is a good indicator of not matching a specific expectation.

Sometimes, the expectation may be about the content value or the frequency of the email.

Hence, when you notice a poor development, try to find out what the group has in common or the missing expectations?

Unsubscribes, occasional spam reports, and hard bounces are good indicators that can help improve your email marketing efficiency.

Spam reports

Although spam reports may be discouraging, it actually means that you have some big bucks on your hands and still getting into the inbox.

The next approach is to understand why you are getting a spam report.

Since you are still landing in the inbox, all you have to do is find the missing expectation for that particular contact.

By so doing, you will be able to make an informed strategy in the future.

During your investigation

It is recommendable to start from the highest level.

At first, you can find out the group of the unsubscribes – what do they have in common?

Are they from a similar conversation path?

Check whether they opt-in using the same platform or version.

Also, it is advisable to check a similar behavior among the contacts too.

From there, you can determine whether you are missing a specific expectation or the frequency of the email is higher or lower than promised.

Although the change might be insignificant, you can tell from the group of people leaving your list quickly.

4. Assess Re-Engagement Approach

After experiencing some negative outcomes from your email deliverability strategy, a re-engagement approach can be employed.

Having a targeted approach can actually build trust.

At this point, you can re-engage by delivering content of interest to your clients or sending the emails according to the number of times promised.

Learning that you are not providing the value that the email recipients submitted their emails for can be the key to creating a mutual trust between your business and your contacts.

5. A Defined Cut-Off

A business should have a defined cut-off point.

Just because you have found out about your graymail doesn’t mean a contact must remain permanent in your list.

The reason is that at some point, the contact may not offer any value to your business anymore.

So, why would you be wasting your effort on such a contact?

Although this is usually not an easy decision, it is a necessary one.

Reality about email

Currently, the reality about email deliverability demands having a cut-off point.

Remember that email marketing strategy is about creating a new relationship.

More importantly, hundreds of other emails are most likely entering the same inbox you are trying to reach.

Hence, if you truly want to own a spot in the busy inbox, you have to create engaging content to show that you respect and appreciate your space.

6. Initiate Re-Subscription Form

Endeavor to closely track whether your contacts are still engaging your emails or not.

If you can find the stage where the contacts stop engaging with your emails, you can use it to make a more informed decision and more targeted approach.

This will help develop a solution that will help initiate a re-subscription form.

By so doing, you’ll not only be re-engaging your contacts but also rebuilding your trust with them.

Conclusion

For anyone who works on lead generation or as a part of an email marketing program, it’s pertinent to understand the importance of building trust.

As stated earlier, trust is fundamental for any healthy and effective email marketing strategy.

To achieve this trust, then you should ensure that you implement the six elements discussed herein, including verifiable permission, double opt-in, tracking hard bounce, assessing re-engagement approach, defined cut-off point, and initiating a re-subscription on forms.

Always remember that these are frameworks for a successful email deliverability strategy.

However, you don’t have to implement every element immediately.

Instead, consider them as a gradual process as you keep building trust between the people you want to continue patronizing your business for years to come.