How to make sure your emails show up in your subscribers' inboxes

Email remains the most effective tool for any digital marketer:

Email has the highest return on investment ( Contact unchanged ).

Almost 80% of B2B marketers say email is the most successful content delivery channel ( Optin Monster ).

60% of consumers admit to buying through email marketing, while only about 12% admit to buying from social media (Optin Monster).

I could go on, but we all know what the data shows: Using email in your marketing is almost always a good idea when done right.

Yes, you need one clickable subject line and copy effective . But before your recipients can get all of that, they need to see your email. Here's how to make that a reality.

Clickable subject lines and effective copy are only good if the recipient sees your #email, @SEOSmarty via @CMIContent said. Click for chirping sound

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Set up a private domain

A lot of outreach campaigns miss this first (and fundamental) step. Outreach campaigns are typically sent from a free domain like Gmail and Yahoo, or the company's main domain.

Free email domains look unprofessional and spammy in nature. Also, "free" comes at a cost: You can't control your access to it. Complaints or suspicious activity may lead to the free domain owner deleting the account. It can also make third-party tools comply DMARC . protocol cannot be accessed.

Using your company's primary domain can be risky for other reasons. If your marketing emails are marked or reported as spam, your company's internal emails may also be affected.

This guide outlines how to set up a custom email address using your hosting provider or Google Workspace (formerly G Suite).

Use a custom branded domain name to send your #EmailMarketing. According to @SEOSmarty via @CMIContent, otherwise you could be at risk in your brand's primary domain email transactions. Click to Tweet Regardless of which address is listed as the sender, make it clear that emails are coming from your brand.

TIP: Choose a domain name that reflects your niche, which strengthens your email subject/subject.

Namify is a great tool to find out email address differences for your marketing purposes as it suggests names that create positive branding and niche links:

The tool checks your selected names across multiple top-level domains:

. Press seems like a perfect top-level domain for reaching out to journalism

. site or .online for general outreach purposes

. active technology for internal communication

. @NamifyTech is a great tool to find unique #email addresses for your marketing purposes because it suggests positive branding names and niche links, according to @SEOSmarty via @CMIContent. Click to Tweet TIP: That is, you should register several top-level domains to use for different purposes.

The main lesson learned is to do this as early as possible in your marketing process. You need a good address setup before it is integrated into your email strategy. Here's why.

Domain Setup

Most spam blockers and antispam filters block email from a new email address. For example, the popular anti-spam platform SpamAssassin marks all emails from domains younger than 14 days as “suspicious.”

Most email marketing platforms recommend using a domain that is at least three to four months old. To be on the safe side, keep your new email address dormant for at least six months before starting mass emailing from there.

Wait to use the new custom domain for #EmailMarketing until it's been fairly inactive for at least six months, @SEOSmarty via @CMIContent said. Click to Tweet To “warm up” your domain before using it for outreach or email marketing:

Set up a small website. This is beneficial for reputation management. It could be a well-branded one-page website . Someone searching for your brand name will see the main site first and the subsite second. Even Google recommends register multiple brand-based domains for a stronger online presence. You can use that little site to explain how (and why) journalists can contact your domain (.press), or use it as your .online domain for establish your knowledge base .

Use your newly established address to email people you know (e.g. employees) for a few weeks. Ask them to reply to those emails.

Keep one address per domain at the top. Slowly add more addresses as your domain gets better established.

Check your email before sending

Different spam filters have all sorts of criteria when it comes to flagging or filtering email as spam:

Domain age and reputation (how new is it and if it's blacklisted as suspicious or inactive)

Age and reputation of domains linked in clone

Hidden link or HTML in copy (URL shorteners are often the cause of emails being filtered)

It's hard to keep track of all possible red flags, but several tools can do it for you. Check mail is my favorite testing tool that ensures that your emails won't get stuck. You don't even need to sign up for an account. This tool provides a unique email address for you to send your emails to. Your red flag report will be ready in a few minutes.

Use #MailTester (free) to make sure @SEOSmarty via @CMIContent indicates #email won't get stuck. #Tools Click to Tweet Analysis will include:

The most popular spam filters (SpamAssassin and Gmail)

Your email body (It will report if you have too many links or any suspicious elements to remove.)

The most popular blacklist

Broken link

You also use test services available in most email and marketing platforms.

Verify your domains with Google's Postmaster Tools is a good idea. It can monitor your outgoing mail and determine whether it has been trapped by Gmail or recognized as spam by Gmail users. While it only informs you about Gmail email recipients, chances are other email service providers will also face similar challenges. It's a good indicator of problems that need fixing.

Set up automatic (but smart) tracking

No matter how careful you are with your email address and copy, many people will still not notice or ignore your email. Tracking is very important.

Actually, tracking can change 22 Add % answer . Without sending a follow-up email, you will lose one-fifth of your leads.

Most outreach platforms offer tracking options that can be set up and customized in different ways. While some case studies show different results depending on how often and how many follow-ups you send, I recommend experimenting with different settings.

For B2B marketing, Exceed AI is a great choice for AI-powered Followers based on the recipient's previous interaction with your brand or their position in the sales cycle:

Exceed cares about personalizing your emails based on two important criteria:

Recipient's basic details (i.e. name)

The recipient's previous purchases or communications with your brand

Personalized is one of the most effective engagement tactics out there, so make sure you personalize your emails no matter what tools and programs you use.

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Retargeting tips and notes

If you come across an email outreach guide from a few years ago, you often see a recommendation to use your reach email list as a custom audience on Facebook to retarget your message to them. through this platform.

This may not be a good idea these days. Facebook tightened your rules and only allow retargeting for opt-in email lists where people explicitly allow you to use their emails for Facebook targeting. Chances are you don't have that permission, so it might not be legal to use those email addresses on Facebook.

However, you can remarket to some of your email contacts using the following process:

Link to a category Landing page from your outreach email.

Setting Facebook pixel to collect traffic to that landing page.

After a few weeks you can use Advertising on Facebook to contact your email recipients who visited that landing page.

You can also use Finteza to retarget people who visited that page. To create an outreach campaign with this tool:

Create a retargeting event: In your website settings, click “Events”, select “Retarget” and specify the landing page linked in your email:

Create a retargeting campaign: Go to your account settings to set up a campaign using your retargeting event:

With the campaign created, you can set up custom ads and call to action to show visitors who entered your website through that page. This could be a CTA that invites you to sit e visitors to contact your press department or link to your survey results.

While this retargeting step won't help you reach people who haven't seen your email or clicked on your link, it will help you build some brand awareness and save some pages. access.

Receive a welcome from the inbox

Email content marketing only works if your recipients see the email. With some extra effort, you can increase the chances that your emails will be delivered and opened by your contacts.

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All tools identified in this article come from the author. If you have a tool to recommend, feel free to add it in the comments.

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Cover photo by Joseph Kalinowski / Content Marketing Institute