Email Marketing: How to Avoid Getting Marked as Spam
Emails are a critical tool for businesses to communicate with customers and prospects. However, one of the biggest challenges for new businesses is avoiding the spam folder. To ensure your emails are delivered successfully, you need to build a positive reputation, which can be a daunting task.
Email Warm-Up
As of 31 January 2023, automated email warm-up tools like GMass have been shut down due to Google's policy change. However, there are still ways to warm up your email address. For example, you can create a testing email list with your personal and family email addresses to communicate with them and get real feedback. This will help you to identify and resolve any issues before sending emails to your prospects.
When sending emails to your prospects, it's crucial to personalise your emails and start with small, targeted groups. The more personalised your emails are, the better chance you have of getting them opened and read.
SPF (Sender Policy Framework) Record
To ensure your emails are not marked as spam, it's important to set up the correct records for your domain. This includes the Sender Policy Framework (SPF) record, which lists the authorised mail servers and domains that can send emails on behalf of your domain. The SPF record confirms that outgoing messages claiming to be from your company are indeed coming from servers you have authorised.
DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) Record
You also need to set up the DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) record, which stores the public key that the receiving mail server uses to validate the signature of a message. The DKIM record is provided by the service provider delivering your email and includes the name, version, key type, and the public key itself.
DMARC (Domain-Based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) Record
Finally, you should set up the Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC) record. This DNS TXT record regulates what happens when a message's authentication fails, which means the receiving server cannot confirm the message's sender.
In conclusion, email deliverability can be simple if you set up your email address correctly from the start. Building a positive reputation by personalising your emails and setting up the correct records will help to improve your sender reputation and ensure that your emails always end up in the inbox, not spam.
