Email remains the most important communication channel for marketers as they look to engage with consumers and drive revenue. Not only is email a preferred channel by consumers, it allows marketers to communicate at a fraction of the cost. However, there are challenges related to email that marketers must face to maximize impact from the channel.
A major challenge for email is that it is not cost prohibitive. While this is a positive, it also means that mistakes don’t seem to have a hard cost, making them easy to ignore. In addition, many marketers still abide by the old mentality that the more email addresses there are in a database, the better. This has led many marketers to be more concerned with growing their email lists than ensuring the quality of the information in them.
These two challenges in combination cause issues impacting sender reputation, leading to email deliverability issues and an inability to communicate with customers.
In a recent Experian Data Quality study, 66 percent of organizations stated that they have faced email deliverability issues. This has led to an inability to communicate with subscribers, poor customer service and increased staff rework.
While there are many factors that go into sender reputation, there are several methods that marketers can utilize to minimize email deliverability issues.
- Use an email validation service – a service used to validate email addresses in bulk or at the point of capture will allow organizations to ensure they capture information correctly and only mail to valid email addresses.
- Remove inactive subscribers from your email list – just because you have an email address, doesn’t mean you should send to it. On a regular basis only send to active and engaged users. Pull inactive or unengaged users from your normal distribution and perform a reengagement campaign.
- Monitor your bounce rate – an increase in your standard bounce rate could be an indication of a sender reputation issue. Be sure to monitor your bounce rate and contact your email service provider if a spike occurs.
If you are interested in learning more about the biggest issues facing organizations’ email programs, check out the info graphic below and download our latest research study “The dark side of email deliverability”.
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