How to stop your emails from going to spam

by | Jul 26, 2022 | Basic Bananas Blog - Marketing Articles

Two women working on laptops during a small business marketing workshop.

5 reasons to keep people subscribed and opening your emails 🔔

  1. Your email database is next year’s sales. It’s your potential to generate sales with just a few emails.
  2. It’s more valuable than your bank account and will actually fill your bank account sustainably if your leads are all nurtured well.
  3. It’s like planting seeds in the garden – you have to nurture them to reap the rewards later. 
  4. It helps to own the decision-making period, which people go through when considering buying from you or not. How long this takes can vary, so you need to make sure you nurture the relationship indefinitely.
  5. When you nurture all your leads, you generate a higher return from the marketing activities that brought the leads to your business. Then you can start spending more on those marketing activities.  

Small business emails marketing tips

 

3 ways to get readers to open your emails! 📨

  1. Your subject line should grab the attention of your target market and intrigue them enough to want to read more.
  2. The first line of the content of your email is visible in the inbox, almost like a second headline. So make it good and inspire people to read more.
  3. The use of emojis in your subject line and the first line of your email will grab readers’ attention and make your email stand out from the rest of the emails in their inbox. 

email marketing techniques

 

Subject line ninja tip: Reference time in your subject line, e.g. ‘Prepare for 2022’ or ‘This is next week’s/ tomorrow’s online class’. We reviewed all our emails with the highest open rates from 2021 and one common thread was referencing time.

 

How to keep people subscribed to your email list! 📒

Insert what we refer to as ‘a gold nugget’. Just include something of value in your regular emails. Your goal is to become the trusted advisor of your audience, so aim to provide value. This could be a tip, a book recommendation, a how-to video, or a link to a great podcast or article. 

 

10 ways to get your emails into the inbox, not into the spam folder! ☑️

  1. Use a first name email address to send your mass emails from, e.g. dave@, so avoid using a department email address, e.g. sales@, admin@, etc.
  2. Say people’s first names in your emails, e.g. ‘Hi Dave’, not just ‘Hi there’.
  3. Don’t have too many external links in each email. 
  4. Don’t repeat the same link more than 2 times in an email.
  5. Don’t go crazy with formatting, e.g. bolding, underlining, capitalizing. Try to keep your emails looking like personal emails to a friend.
  6. Your ‘Email from’ name is the name that will appear in your customers’ inbox. Make this a personal name, not a department name or just an email address.
  7. Try not to use spammy-looking words. If an email looks like spam, it will trigger spam filters: e.g. urgent, free access, money, win, increase sales, apply now, $$$
  8. In your database system, change the unsubscribe link from using the word ‘Unsubscribe’, as this word will be picked up by spam filters. Instead, use something like ‘Update subscription’ or ‘Update mailing preferences’ to avoid triggering spam filters.
  9. Past engagement matters, so whether your customers have been opening emails in the past. It’s like your email address has an improved reputation, so try to generate engagement from the email address to which you send mass emails. 
  10.  To wake up an email list that has gone cold, try a video messaging program like Bonjoro to send personalised video messages really quickly. This is also a great software for sending promotional messages to your top customers, reactivating past customers, and onboarding new clients and is generally just a nice way to say ‘Thank you’ to people. We are achieving as high as 80% open rates when we send personalised messages via email with Bonjoro.

how to avoid the spam folder