Even with the popularity of SMS marketing, email marketing is still KING for most small businesses. But how do you navigate the rough waters of email marketing so your emails end up in the inbox, not the spam folder?
You want to know about two essential things: Email Validation and Opt-In Email.
Having a bunch of email addresses is not the point. Having email addresses that are validated and opted-in is the holy grail for email marketers.
Let’s start with email validation.
Email validation is a process where each one of your email addresses is scrutinized before the email is actually sent.
First in the validation process are the checks to ensure there are no typos and everything is spelled correctly and formatted correctly.
Then, the email is checked for the likelihood that it will get delivered. Is this a real domain name? Has this email address been delivered before (based on billions of emails sent)? Is this a phony email address designed to trap spammers? Is this a role-based email (emails not intended to for personal use)?
By sending only validated emails, your overall deliverability will increase, your sending reputation will skyrocket, your open rates go higher, and you won’t be wasting marketing efforts with a bunch of useless and often harmful email addresses.
You should only send an email if the email address has been validated. If you don’t, you are hurting your sender score, and increasing the chances that all of your emails will by-pass the inboxes and head straight for the spam folder.
Now let’s talk about opted-in emails.
When someone gives you permission to send them emails, those emails are said to be opted-in. Permission can be given verbally, in writing, or, most commonly when someone fills out a Landing Page form requesting information from you.
An email list of people who have opt-ed in is far more valuable than a list of emails from random people.
You’ve heard people say: “I have a million people on my email list”. Wow! Impressive? Well…no. That person will be wasting a lot of time and money marketing to a useless list.
Then you will hear them say: “Well, if just one person on that list does business with me, then it was all worth it.” Wrong again. By sending to this random list of names, this foolish business owner is ruining her sending reputation and making it almost impossible to ensure important emails to real customers end up in the inbox.
Making sure all your email addresses are validated and opted-in is a hassle. Choose a system like AllClients which will do all the heavy lifting for you.
