It may seem a little old-fashioned at this point, but email is still one of the most important channels for digital marketing.
The fact is, it works.
It's one of the best ways to reach your audience effectively, and you should start building your mailing list as soon as you launch your business.
But there are a few things you might not know about email, and these things are pretty important.
You might be under the impression that email is super secure by default, but actually, it's a big source of potential security threats.
You also need to be aware of regulations like CAN-SPAM, which regulate the dissemination of promotional email.
You should also know about how some features in Gmail, which are great for users, can present an obstacle to marketers by sequestering your messages in folders people rarely look at.
In a recent blog post, Blog Tyrant talks about some of the lesser-known facts about email.
It’s not as secure as you think
Email (like anything these days *sigh*) is prone to a lot of security threats which you need to be aware of, especially if emailing forms an important place in your business.
A large portion of the threats out there seem to occur due to lazy security practices, but there have been some recent news stories about people who have had their email accounts taken over even when they had two-factor authentication enabled.
You can get some more tips about security in this post but the main things you need to do are avoid public WiFi, have complex usernames and passwords, keep software and apps up to date, stop clicking links in emails, enable two-factor authentication, and so on.
Gmail is making it harder for email marketers
Google has made a few changes in the last few years that are making it harder for email marketers. This is good in that it stops a lot of dodgy spammers, and bad in that a lot of legitimate emails get trapped in their net.
For example, a few years ago Gmail added tabs to the inbox that sorted emails accord to whether they were Primary, Social, or Promotions which meant that a lot of newsletters landed in the Promotions bin and never got opened. Here’s a good article on how to avoid that, by the way.
Screenshot from my mail, edited to remove personal details.
[image source: Blog Tyrant]
Similarly, in your iPhone you’ll now see a little warning at the top of emails that they think are coming from a mailing list and offers you an unsubscribe option at the top. This can be very handy for some uses, but also a little annoying for bloggers who have obtained those subscribers legitimately.
That being said, all email promotions should offer an unsubscribe option somewhere in the email anyway, but this feature just makes it a little bit more prominent and maybe more open to impulsive clicking.
People mark emails as spam based on small triggers
If you’re sending emails like the above, or if you run a mailing list that is a little bit more natural, be aware that people mark emails as spam based on very small triggers.
For example, if your email is not personalized and says something like “Dear Sir/Madam” and then is written in all blue text sized 18px then it’s a good chance it’s going into the spam folder.
[image source: Blog Tyrant]
Most email providers will have this type of thing built in now, but you can also use a service like this one to see how spammy your emails are and whether they’re even going to get delivered in the first place. It’s a good idea to practice a few of these.
In the meantime, beware that a lot of keywords will also trigger emails to go to a spam folder as they think they are spam or a promotion. Here’s a list of 400 of them you might want to not all put together!
Your email can get blacklisted
Did you know that your specific email can get blacklisted by other email servers?
This is a really common problem that is actually overlooked by a lot of bloggers and online entrepreneurs and can result in a bunch of emails getting lost as the server refuses to deliver them to the recipient.
[image source: Blog Tyrant]
You can use a tool like this one from MX Toolbox which checks your IP or domain name and sees which servers are blocking it and gives you a reason. You can then follow up with your host and see what else can be done to remove you from any naughty lists.
You can find more smart email marketing tips over at Blog Tyrant.
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