How many times have you sent an important email to a client and they tell you they never received it?
Chances are it got stuck in their spam filter, the last place you want your emails to end up. So, what can you do to make sure your emails are going to the inbox where they belong rather than the spam folder? We’ve put together the top 5 reasons your emails are going to spam and what you can do to fix it.
1. Not Following the CAN-SPAM Act
The first step to avoiding getting sent to the spam filter is to make sure you aren’t sending any spam! Following the CAN-SPAM Act with all your emails is (obviously) a must but there are a couple of rules that can often be overlooked.
Make sure you are only sending emails to people who have opted-in. An easy way to do this is to collect email addresses on your SAGE Website, where customers can subscribe to your email list, giving you express permission to send them updates, newsletters, promotions, and any other emails.
You should also include your physical address in the footer of every email campaign you send. It’s one of the main things spam filters will scan for when deciding whether your email belongs in their inbox or not.
2. Suspicious Subject Lines
Your subject lines are also an important factor when email service providers decide if your email is spam or not. So, be sure to avoid common words that are associated with spam. Also avoid special characters like $, #, @, & since they often result in your email landing in the spam folder. If you have to use them in the body of your email, make sure you only use them sparingly.
Your subject lines are supposed to convey the subject of your email so be specific about what the email is regarding! Never use deceptive subject lines to entice readers with false promises, this is a sure way to get your email deleted or reported as spam. Also, using “RE:” in your subject when you haven’t had prior contact with them is a red flag to spam filters.
3. Low Open Rates
Increasing your open rate can be hard, people today get so many emails it can seem impossible to cut through the noise. However, if you are consistently sending emails with low open rates, future emails will start getting flagged as spam. Even if you come up with an engaging (and accurate) subject line, that doesn’t guarantee an improvement in open rates. So, what do you do?
You’re going to need to start using the trial and error method to figure out how often your subscribers want to hear from you and when they are most likely to be engaged with your content. Try sending emails to groups of subscribers on different days and at different times of the day. If you find that your audience is the most active on Wednesday mornings before 10:00am, then that is when you should be sending your email campaigns.
4. Email Deliverability Record
If your emails are getting marked as spam, it can damage your reputation as a sender and make future emails less deliverable, even if they are following the rules.
It’s important to keep your subscriber list current and up-to-date to avoid your emails being marked as “undeliverable”. If you haven’t cleaned up your subscriber list in a while you might be getting a large number of bounces and unsubscribes from old customers who changed their email address or even moved to a different company or industry.
Keep tabs on your audience with the real-time email campaign reports in SAGE Online, you’ll see the number of clicks, bounces, and unsubscribes for every email.
5. Not Optimizing User Experience
The easiest way to improve your user experience is to double-check your emails’ images, links, and formatting before sending. If a customer opens up your email on their mobile device and none of the images load, they could mark it as spam or unsubscribe because they are unable to see the content. Also, make sure you are sending your subscribers content that is relevant to them. After all, you want them to enjoy getting your emails!
You can easily segment your subscribers by industry, location, or even separate lists for prospective customers and customers who have ordered recently in the SAGE CRM module. Segmenting is a great way to make sure all your customers are getting the content that is most relevant to them and keeps your email list engaged.
If you need help sending relevant, mobile-responsive, and engaging email campaigns, we’ve got you covered! SAGE Email Campaigns make it quick and easy to create striking promo campaigns and track your successes with no coding experience necessary. You even get two ready-to-go emails to send out to your subscriber list every month. Check out a few of our previous campaigns, and see how you can brand your business in new ways. And to top it off, if you have a SAGE Website, when your recipient clicks on a product, they’ll be taken directly to that product on your website, making conversion easy!
