If you need another reason to clean up your email list, here’s one.  AOL recently announced they are refining their process when it comes to high invalid or unknown user rates.  What does this mean for you?  It means that if you have an above average number of invalid or bad email addresses on your list, you could begin to see poorer deliverability to AOL.

So what can you do about this?  Be diligent about cleaning your list of people that consistently bounce.  These are the bad email addresses contributing to your unknown user rate.  Cleaning your list of bounces, both hard and soft, is easy and automatic in Publicaster.  To read how, click here.

Keep in mind that AOL will also be looking at other factors when determining if they should allow your email to the Inbox.  These include CAN-SPAM compliance, authentication protocol set up and adherence to general email best practices.  Following the rules, keeping up on best practices, and maintaining a clean list will all help improve your deliverability to AOL.

Many of our clients have signed up for our Delivery Assurance Solutions program and seen significant improvements in their email program.  One we’re particularly excited about is the success Caribbean Tours & Cruises has seen.  They diligently use both the Campaign Preview and Mailbox Monitor tools to tweak and improve their emails for maximum deliverability.  Recently, they hit the 97.9% mark for their Inbox Deliverability!  That is often unheard of in the email industry, and certainly something to be proud of.

Check out our case study to read more.

If you are interested to learn more about how our Delivery Assurance Solutions can help your email program, click here.

This week we ran the first in our new series of informative webinars. Each event will cover a topic relating to your email experience.

Our first event was all about deliverability, authentication, and our new Sender Score Monitor program. We had such a great turnout that we will be running an encore presentation on Wednesday, March 26th at 3:30pm EST. We will show you how to:

• See Your Email Campaigns Render Across 17 Email Clients
• Monitor Your Email Delivery across the Major ISP’s
• Get WhiteListed as a Legitimate Email Marketer

Don’t miss out, click here to register!

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!

The answer to that question may determine whether your marketing emails end up in the junk folder or the inbox. You see, a large share of deliverability challenges can not be mitigated by clever technology or reputation management solutions. They are caused by companies, who do get permission to deliver email, but then send only sales messages.

Many recipients don’t remember or care whether they subscribed to your emails. At best they will unsubscribe — often, you run the risk of getting a click of the notorious “this is SPAM” button. Sending welcome email is in large part a result of your intent.

A recent article by Jackie Huba outlines the basic differences between sales messages that are imposed and evangelizing messages that are more often welcomed. These differences are remarkably similar to the differences between spam and welcome email.

To adapt Huba’s idea to email marketing, we would have a chart of characteristics that looks something like this:

Within these characteristics, how do your recipients rate your messages? Are they bored by the same old sales pitch in every message or are they sometimes engaged by your unconventional ideas? Do you share the passion and mission of your organization or only the latest discounts?

Over time, the answers to these questions will affect your email deliverability even when recipients have asked to receive your messages.