A lot goes into creating a high-performing holiday email campaign. You want your emails to be great, but that's not the whole package. You also have to send them the right way so they can reach your customers' inboxes.
Email marketing is effective. Its personal and direct nature allows you to connect with your prospects like no other channel. But competition is intense—even more so during the holidays.
Although creating compelling emails is a priority, you also have to think about who those emails are going to. Will they reach the inbox? How can you make sure of that ahead of time?
The email deliverability tactics in this article will help you do exactly that.
Why Boost Email Deliverability Before Your Holiday Email Campaigns?
Good email deliverability doesn't happen overnight. If you want your holiday email campaigns to arrive in your customers' inboxes, you have to work on it before you launch.
It takes time to build your sender reputation, which is a score that helps mailbox providers assess where your emails should go. The higher your sender score, the more likely your campaigns will land in people's inboxes.
The following insights will help you adjust before it's too late. You'll learn how to prep ahead of time—from checking your email list to boosting engagement before the launch.
Four Ways to Boost Email Deliverability
1. Verify your data to check for obsolete emails
You work hard to grow your email list, and not wanting to part with your contacts is understandable. But data doesn't stay fresh forever. A segment of your email list will go bad every year—with immediate consequences.
Emailing fake accounts and getting bounces has a great impact on your sender reputation. For instance, when more than 2% of your emails bounce, your score declines and your future campaigns may start going to spam.
Email verification pinpoints obsolete email addresses and allows you to remove them before they create havoc.
Weeding out those bad emails helps you to...
- Avoid paying to store invalid data
- Improve your status with mailbox providers and boost your email deliverability
A quarterly removal of outdated data is the best approach. If you haven't checked your email list in more than six months, certainly do so before your holiday campaigns.
2. Remove dormant subscribers and complainers
Do you have a strategy for dealing with unengaged subscribers? You'd be wise to address those accounts before the holidays.
Just like bounces, people who don't engage with your emails bring down your sender score. If subscribers don't care about your content, you may lose your spot in their inbox. Earning it back takes extra work and time. So, before you launch your holiday email campaign, make sure to prune out subscribers who haven't clicked in more than three months.
Spam complaints tarnish your reputation even more. When people report your emails as spam, your future campaigns will start going to the junk folder. Take a closer look at your list of complainers, make sure you filter them out, and never email them again.
3. Slowly increase your sending frequency
During the holidays, you'll probably send more emails than usual. Increasing your frequency is fine if you've been emailing your list regularly. However, if your sending rhythm has been inconsistent throughout the year, start increasing it now.
Sudden spikes in email volume can affect your email deliverability. It's a sign of spam, and spam filters detect and block that type of behavior. To avoid having your emails go to spam, gradually increase the number of emails you send.
For instance, if you're planning to send daily emails during the holidays, you could start sending one or two emails a week first. Educational content nurtures your list and helps you warm up otherwise uninterested prospects. Your sending IP will warm up, too, giving your emails a higher chance of arriving in the inbox.
4. Test your email deliverability
Even when you do everything by the book, sometimes unexpected things can cause your emails to go to the spam folder. With certain email providers, it can be something as small as using link shorteners in your emails. With others, it can be a subject line that triggers spam filters.
To get an idea of where your campaign will land, consider testing it before sending it to your entire list. Our inbox tester allows you to send your email to 20 seed email addresses associated with the most popular providers. If your campaign goes to spam or doesn't get delivered, you can edit it until it reaches the inbox.
Running an email deliverability test gives you more confidence about hitting "Send." The feedback you get helps you make better decisions and build a more effective email program.
All-Year-Round Email Tactics
You can use the tactics in this article all year round, but especially in the upcoming weeks, before the holiday.
Make the most of our email deliverability and testing tools: You can try them out for free with a ZeroBounce account. That way, you'll be able to make the holidays not only the most wonderful time of the year but also the most profitable.
