Start your email marketing the right way

This post is part 1 of a 2 part series created to help you with the initial steps to get started and further activities to up your email marketing game.

Sending an email newsletter and the occasional promotional email to your clients is a great way to stay top of mind and boost your sales. You want to make sure you start out right to avoid running into issues.

What kind of issues you may wonder? Well, the kind of things you could run into are:

• having your domain blacklisted by ISPs,
• your bounce rate could be too high causing your email sending platform to suspend you from sending any further emailers from their platform,
• you could damage your domain’s reputation – this affects mail delivery and can cause your emails to be sent to the spam folder (even your genuine day to day normal emails).

As you can see all of these can be very inconvenient, even showstoppers, if your regular emails (such as quotes and invoices) are not delivered.

Use our checklist to help you start to email market like a pro:

1. Send your email campaigns from a reputable email sending platform – this will take care of the mandatory unsubscribe link automatically. Using an email sending platform will also make it easier for you to be POPIA and GDPR compliant.
2. Choose an email address that you are going to use to send your emailers from. Some examples are hello@companyname.com and news@companyname.com. Don’t send marketing emails from a noreply@ email address.
3. Sender name and sender email address are important for open rates. They enable the recipient to identify who the email is from and by continuously using the same email address and from name will build brand familiarity and trust. You can send from the brand name or a person’s name.
4. Prepare your mailing list/s. Be sure the list you upload into the email sending platform contains valid email addresses. It’s not a good strategy to assume the email sending platform is going to “clean” your mailing list when you send your first emailer. If your bounce rates are too high you run the risk of your account being suspended. Email sending platforms expect you to be sending to a “clean” list. Email sending platforms do this to protect themselves and the other users on their platform from being listed as spammers. There are tools and services you can use to verify and validate the email addresses.
5. Remember to check legislation around bulk email for the countries your customers reside in. Read more about POPIA compliance for email marketing here. If you are going to be sending bulk email to customers in European countries you will need to check you do this in a way that complies with GDPR. Find out if you need to be GDPR compliant here.
6. Have a strategy to grow your mailing list: examples include a sign up form on your website, team members tasked with adding new clients to the list, or a campaign on suitable social media or other channels.

These are the basics to get you ready to start sending bulk emails.

Once you’re set up on your email sending platform, go to How to email market like a pro – part 2 to advance your email marketing.

Need help? Cantaloupe Digital’s services include this all important “set up”, so complete the form on this page if want some help with this. We’ll even help you identify the most suitable email sending platform.