Many business owners and marketers alike struggle with email marketing. On the surface, it sounds simple. Anyone can send an email. But many questions arise when you start getting into the weeds of email marketing. Perhaps on the top of the list is “How do I avoid spamming my customers?”
Spamming isn’t only annoying to your customers; it also affects your sender reputation and email deliverability. Spam filters by email service providers (ESPs) like Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo are designed to keep spam emails out of the primary inbox.
If you aren’t careful, your emails may be sent to a spam folder, bounce, or you could even get blacklisted. The lower your sender reputation is, the more likely your email campaigns will fail to meet their goals.
Here are some ways you can avoid spamming your email recipients.
Set Up a Double Opt-In
A double opt-in is a system for customers to:
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Say they want to receive your emails.
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Confirm that they do, indeed, want to receive your emails.
Maybe you’re sending an email newsletter once a week. You likely have a form on your website where customers can sign up. This is opt-in number one. Once they say that they’d like to receive your emails for the first time, automatically send an email asking your subscriber to confirm their email address. This serves as your second opt-in.
The main objection business owners and marketers usually have is that some subscribers may not confirm their email addresses, which can slow the growth of your email list. Let me put that fear to bed.
First, you’d rather email subscribers who actually want to hear from you because they’re more likely to buy your product or service. Second, it’s easy for bots to put fake email addresses into a form. A double opt-in ensures that you are emailing real people.
Finally, a quality email list will give you an accurate measurement of your campaign’s health. You’ll get data on metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and conversions that you can rely on.
Clean Up Your Contact List Regularly
Be sure to clean up your contact list consistently and ruthlessly. Again, you want to email real people who want to hear from you. Keeping your list clean reassures email service providers that you aren’t spam and increases your delivery rate to recipient’s inboxes.
As a general rule, clean up your list every six months by removing people who don’t interact with your emails. Don’t let your list go more than a year without a good cleanup; if you want to be diligent, every three months is best.
You can either unsubscribe contacts or email them asking if they still want to hear from you. If they opt-in again, great! If not, you know it’s best to remove them from your list.
Some business owners and marketers may want to try a re-engagement campaign. A re-engagement campaign usually consists of a catchy subject line and some kind of offering to get inactive subscribers interested again. But no one will keep everyone, so it’s best to let go when you’ve tried what you can and aren’t receiving engagement.
Provide an “Unsubscribe” Button in the Footer
This is an easy one! Put an unsubscribe link in the footer of your emails, and don’t try to be sneaky about it. Make it clear and easy without extra hoops to jump through after they’ve hit “unsubscribe.” ESPs will see the link and are less likely to mark you as a spammer.
Stay True to Your Offering
Staying true to your offering is doing what you say you’ll do. If you tell subscribers that you’ll be sending an email once a week, don’t spam them by emailing more often. Your subscribers only signed up for one email once a week.
Likewise, don’t change the purpose of your email at the drop of a hat. Your subscribers signed up for specific content from you and may feel tricked if they receive entirely different content. You’ll have much more success in your email campaigns by staying true to your offerings.
However, this isn’t to say that you can never up your email frequency. You can do so sparingly and to another consistent amount. Be sure that you have enough valuable content to send or that your offerings change enough to warrant an increase in emails. Don’t send more than two to three emails per week for any campaign.
Send Valuable Content
Successful email marketers send valuable content to their subscribers. Content that isn’t valuable or is too “sales-y” will result in increased unsubscribe and spam complaints that harm your sender reputation. You’ll know you’re sending valuable content if you:
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Focus on the customer: Get to know your customer, and email content that will help solve their problems or meet their needs.
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Provide educational content: Educational content helps customers become or stay interested in your product or service. This could be through tips, a product guide, FAQs, or something longer like the introduction to a blog post.
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Send timely information: Timely information related to the world around us (in relation to your product or service) is always valuable to customers. Any time you can incorporate timely information, be sure to do it.
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Encourage participation: Are you unsure what email content to send? Just ask! You can ask through a form on your website, email, or social media. You can also encourage participation by asking subscribers to post videos or photos of themselves using your product or after their service. You’ll get email and social media engagement!
“A targeted, well-designed, and relevant email marketing campaign has been proven to convert a high number of prospects into customers and existing customers into advocates.” – Dave Sutton, a leader in transformational marketing
Authenticate Your Email Address
Send emails from an email address with your domain name. Authenticate your email address with your email marketing platform, following the required verification steps.
Authenticating your email address protects your domain reputation, identity, and brand from bots or spam traps pretending to be you. It’ll make your emails much more deliverable and more likely to send without a phishing warning at the top.
Use Email Checkers to Determine Your Spam Score
Plenty of free and paid services will analyze your commercial emails within seconds against spam trigger words and other factors that increase your chances of your legitimate email being sent to junk folders. You can check each email template you send through these online services to be sure you aren’t sending something that looks like spam and affects your email reputation.
A Few “Don’ts”
Don’t Use Misleading Email Subject Lines
This tip goes almost without saying, but don’t use misleading subject lines. Be honest about what your email offers, so your subscribers don’t feel tricked.
Don’t Forget a CTA
A subscriber opened your email. Now what? Be sure to include an eye-catching call to action (CTA) within your email, driving customers to click, watch, purchase, or any other action you are hoping for clients to take from your email campaign.
Don’t Send Attachments
Attachments are a no-go for ESPs. Your email may be flagged as unsafe if you send an attachment. In lieu of an attachment, you can send a link.
Don’t Send Too Many Photos
In a 2022 study, Constant Contact analyzed over 2.1 million emails sent to over 100 customers. They found that the emails with the highest click-through rates had three or fewer images. So, keep your images down to a minimum.
One of the best pieces of advice in email marketing:
“Stop trying to be amazing and start being useful.” – Jay Baer
Unlock the potential of email marketing—without the spammy tactics
Learn and integrate email marketing best practices into your marketing strategy to broaden your reach, increase conversations, and—most importantly—avoid spamming your customers.
Connect with a top-rated email marketing agency who can help get your email campaigns on track for success.