WHAT HAPPENS TO YOUR EMAILS?

You don’t have to be spam to get blocked. One in five legitimate marketing emails fails to get to the receiver’s inbox. That is what Return Path reveals in their new research into European marketers’ knowledge about their own emails. In most cases marketers are ‘emailing in the dark’ not knowing what happens to their sent messages.

Two in five interviewed people still think an email gets delivered if it is sent or doesn’t bounce back. But twenty per cent of messages are being blocked or directed to the junk folder, according to Return Path – the company that helps marketers get their emails into the inbox and read. Email is the cheapest way to distribute your messages but it’s got to be done properly. No matter how many hours you spend creating a really great message, the effort is wasted if it doesn’t get delivered and read.

Many people think that reaching the inbox is the sole responsibility of Email Service Providers (ESPs). But it is ultimately in the hands of the senders themselves to make sure their messages are read. Demanding all-encompassing deliverability reports from your Internet Service Provider (ISP) is an excellent way to find out the destiny of your marketing messages. However, very few people do this at the moment, according to Return Path. This report must contain detailed metrics – the percentage of emails being placed to ‘inbox’, ‘junk’ or ‘missed’. Once you have that knowledge you can act upon it, but Return Path warns not to trust unrealistically high metrics. A delivered email is one that not only was sent and didn’t bounce back, but that actually reached the inbox. So why do some emails get blocked?

They either look like spam or are not wanted by the reader. The first one is relatively easy to correct. You might need to change the email’s format and rewrite some of the content. The second one is almost as easy. Readers often mark emails as spam because they don’t want to go through a complicated procedure of unsubscribing. You need to make it easy for people to stop receiving your messages because too many spam complaints will affect your company’s reputation. Putting an ‘unsubscribe’ option at the top of the page should help. To keep your subscribers, try and make sure your emails are relevant and targeted to each individual customer. Special offers personalised with a customer’s name or the like usually work well.
If you follow this advice, you stand a much better chance of getting your message to the customer.