Businesses of all types can benefit from a well-run email marketing initiative. Today, however, they must take extra precautions to ensure they maintain a reputation as a high-quality sender to optimize delivery and improve conversions. Review these top tips and make sure your organization follows them all:

Ping test emails

Always ping test your emails before your initial campaign, especially if it is for an older list, trade show list, or prospect list. And once ping tested, never use ping failed emails.

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Monitor your autoresponders and delete and remove them immediately after each campaign. These email responses should be closely reviewed, as the autoresponder may come from a different source than the actual email that needs to be deleted.

Consistency and Frequency

The consistency and frequency of your email campaigns are important to maintaining a positive sender reputation. ISPs try to create and evaluate email marketing history for your domain. The more consistent and reasonable you are with your frequency, the more likely you are to build a strong reputation as a sender. That assumes you’re following the other tips listed here.

Avoid/Reduce Complaints

Lots of complaints will spell lots of trouble for your sender’s reputation and domain. The best way to avoid complaints is to limit campaign frequency (every two weeks for most general campaigns is a good rule of thumb), honor opt-outs right away, focus on content and quality guarantees, and restrict the “sales” pitches.

Avoid spam traps (Honeypots)

Spam traps, sometimes called honeypots, are email addresses created specifically to capture emails from sellers who don’t follow email best practices. The scams target marketers who are mining email addresses from the web or simply sending emails using low-quality lists. Enough “catch” by spam traps can result in low deliverability or even domain blacklisting.

Use relevant educational content

“Buy my stuff and save money now”! If your content is commercial, spam, and irrelevant, your sender reputation will be negatively affected, and it will happen quickly. Try to make your content relevant and educational. Changing regulations, industry innovation, important news of the day, and educational webinars will be more welcome than an invitation to buy your products or services.

Email marketing is as much an art as it is a science, and it is increasing in complexity and nuance of deliverability. It can be a great lead generator when used correctly, or a waste of time and money when used with an email “blast” mentality. Insurance agency marketers who lack the time or resources to carry out this type of initiative can outsource their campaigns to a competent insurance agency marketing company.