Email deliverability is part art and part science, what are some best practices for marketers?

Howie,

What Andrew B. said and one more thing. It all starts with permission. How you acquire your subscribers, how you welcome them into your program and what you do to those that are not responsive all lead to what Andrew B. said about reputation.

In addition, deliverability is a tricky nut to crack. Often you can be the best at permission and other things, but still have issues getting to the inbox. You either need to monitor your deliverability yourself by learning about it or hire someone who can. Never put the onus of deliverability on your ESP. I akin it to having the fox watch the henhouse. Its your program and there are many tools like Litmus, Pivotal Veracity and Return Path to monitor your reputation and your sends, but you as the individual or organization need to be in control.

Remember, it starts with permission.

Andrew

Indeed it does start with permission Andrew K is right. The secret of being able to achieve good deliverability really is quite simple from the marketing perspective.

"Only send email to those that have a confirmed optin status (permission) with you, respect and offer the ability to easily unsubscribe, only use the email address for the reason for which it was provided to you and ensure every message is relevant and of genuine potential value to the recipient."

Also a very good point on monitoring your deliverability yourself, without a doubt you should not simply take your ESP's word for it, check and test yourself. However if you follow the secret above then any good ESP or Deliverability Consultant should be able to take care of the rest with little or no problem.

Andrew B

You can try service like mailchimp or similar. they often have tools that will "score" your email for how "spammy" it might be considered. It checks your email against a list of words that will increase the "spamminess" of your email and stuff like that.

Also, by using the service provider's server to send your mail, it helps since they have good relations with the big email provider (hotmail, yahoo, etc.) and try hard to keep a good reputation so it is in their advantage to help you avoid being flagged as a spammer.

Hope this help

I recently wrote a blog post on things to look for regarding email deliverability when shopping for an email marketing solution. You may want to check it out: http://www.loopfuse.com/blog/2010/09/15/marketing-automation-buyers-guide-to-...

If you’re sending promo or sales emails, you should abide by some of these core rules:

• Never use deceptive headers, from-names, reply-tos, or subject lines.
• You must always provide an unsubscribe link.
• Remove recipients from your list within 7-10 business days.
• The unsubscribe link must work for at least 30 days after sending.
• You must include your physical mailing address somewhere in your email (usually footer)

In regards to what Martin said earlier about "spam" -- If your campaign's total "spam score" exceeds a certain threshold, then your email goes to the junk folder. You're
probably thinking, "What's the threshold I need to stay under?" Sorry, but the number is different for every server. As for that list of "spammy" criteria, it's constantly growing and adapting, because spam filters learn more about junk every time
someone clicks the This is spam button in their email program.

These are the most common mistakes we see new email marketers make, which result in accidental spam filtering:

• Using spammy phrases, like "Click here!" or "Once in a lifetime opportunity!"
• Going crazy with exclamation points!!!!!!
• USING ALL CAPS, WHICH IS LIKE SCREAMING AT THE TOP OF YOUR LUNGS VIA EMAIL (especially in the subject line)
• Coloring fonts bright red or green
• Coding sloppy HTML, usually from converting a Microsoft Word file to HTML
• Creating an HTML email that's nothing but one big image, with little or no text (since spam filters can't read images, they assume you're a spammer that's trying to trick 'em)
• Using the word "Test" in the subject line (agencies run into this when sending drafts to clients for approval)
• Sending a test to multiple recipients within the same company (that company's email firewall can only assume it's a spam attack)
• Designing HTML email in Word and exporting the code to HTML (That code is sloppy, and spam filters hate it.)

If you can follow these rules to begin with, I believe you will be in great shape.

Best,

Nabeel

AppealCulture
www.AppealCulture.com

First, you have to follow the rules. When it comes to email marketing the rules are found in the CAN-SPAM Act (http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/business/ecommerce/bus61.shtm).

It is best to use an email service that will make sure you are in compliance.

Next, be real and be relevant. Know the interests of the people who are on your list (which need to be an "opt-in" list) and address them.

Your subject should be interesting, not just an announcement of your lasted promotion.
Your content should make people want to either read more, click on your link, or actually buy something without being a hard sell.

The design needs to have a professional looking layout, with a couple images. Not too many, and not too big as to jam up their inbox.