3 little known email marketing tactics.

I hope 2019 has begun well for you and your agency. ☺  

While chatting with other insurance industry markets (clients, mostly), I am often asked “What are the most important tips you have for email marketing?” 

I can see how this is a common question. After all, email marketing has become a lot more complicated; there is a ton of conflicting information out there about email marketing; and sophisticated cloud filters have ‘clouded’ the anti-spam landscape, making it much harder for even smaller, legitimate drip marketing campaigns to hit the inbox. 

There are many of the usual best practices which you and your marketing team are well aware of. But, there are a few that are not so well known. 

So, here are my Top 3 tips (that not many marketers are aware of) for you and your company to be successful with email marketing in 2019 –

 1. Send to your most positive responders first. If you have a list of 5k, and you determine 1k to be your biggest fans (people that will engage with the email positively), then start sending to that 1k first, and the remaining 4k after. This is important because, spam filters using artificial intelligence (AI) pay attention to how well the bulk email is being received in the early going before allowing more through or shutting out the remainder of the campaign.    
1. 2. No dead links. This is a big deal because many cloud filters will robo-click links in the bulk email to determine the validity of the source, sender domain and IP reputation, etc. If they find dead links, and certain thresholds are crossed, the rest of the email is locked out from delivery through the filters.
2. 3. The first 200 characters. This varies for spam filters, but the first 150-200 characters (including subject line) should have some variation in them. You can use first names or company names or zip codes weaved into the content. Older spam filters look at the first part of each email piece as a unique footprint, in addition to the whole email having an identifiable print. This is all happening at real time, so if your email is sufficiently different from the next email that comes through, then it has a higher chance of getting past the filter, then past the spam-box and into the mailbox. I am, of course oversimplifying, but this is a little known approach to getting better deliverability.
3. I hope that helps you and your team with your internal bulk email marketing efforts. I am happy to chat and explain further if you like. Do get in touch. Please email me at [email protected].