If you are a regular reader of The Thinking Inbox, you have often read about best practices in email marketing. We love to share our knowledge with you, and this week for “show and tell” I bring you an article all about best practices from Media Post’s Email Insider blog. Recently they reviewed email guidelines posted by major ISPs and found that many of the best practices that they (and Blue Sky Factory) have been preaching are in fact becoming requirements for deliverability. Providers such as Yahoo, Gmail, and Road Runner make recommendations for increased deliverability, but these suggestions should be considered mandatory if you hope to get your emails through.

Some of these best practices include:

• Use confirmed opt-in lists only. Publicaster has a great tool to create opt-in forms that send new subscribers directly into your database. For the cleanest list, use the double opt-in feature. To read more about opt-in forms, click here.
• Set up your Sender ID/SPF Record and Domain Keys. We have been encouraging our clients to complete this simple step to increase deliverability dramatically. In fact, we have written about authentication twice in the last few months. Find more info on that here and here.
• Keep your lists clean as a whistle! List hygiene is not something to put off for another day, and managing your bounces in Publicaster is easy. Read all about bounce management here.

I strongly encourage you to read more about these best practices and incorporate them into your email marketing strategy. Your deliverability depends on it!