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Email Best Practices

Khibtiya Afreen
Updated

In today's digital world, sending engaging emails is crucial for businesses to connect with their audience and uphold a positive brand image. 

To maintain email hygiene and avoid being flagged as spam, you can adhere to the following best practices for keeping your email and health information up-to-date. 

  • Maintain a Clean Email List:
    • It's recommended to regularly clean your email list by removing inactive or bouncing email addresses. Schedule bulk cleanups at regular intervals to maintain a healthy list.
    • It is important to promptly remove users who have unsubscribed from our communication channels and honor all unsubscribe requests. This ensures that we are respecting our users' preferences and privacy.
    • Creating rule-based lists and Action-based Targeting prevent repetitive emails to the same recipient.
    • Many email list cleaning services use various techniques to identify and remove invalid, inactive, or non-responsive email addresses from your list. Some of these are:
  • Permission and Consent: The permission-based approach requires individuals to actively agree to receive communications before you add them to your email list or contact them. Some examples:
  • Explicit Permission: When asking for consent to send emails, it's important to ensure that the individual's permission is specific and informed. For instance, you could include a checkbox on your website's sign-up form, asking users for their consent.
    "Please check this box to receive our monthly newsletter with updates, tips, and special offers."
    By checking the box, the recipient explicitly agrees to receive your newsletter.

  • Clear Explanation: When requesting consent, it is important to clearly explain the type of content that subscribers will receive. For instance:
    "By subscribing to our email list, you'll receive our weekly blog updates, exclusive discounts, and product announcements."
    This explanation will help people understand the benefits they will receive by subscribing.
  • No Pre-Checked Boxes: Do not use pre-checked boxes when designing your signup forms. The subscriber should actively check the box themselves, indicating their consent. A pre-checked box implies automatic enrollment, which doesn't align with the concept of opt-in consent.

  • Unsubscribe Option: In every email you send, make it easy for subscribers to unsubscribe by providing a prominent link at the bottom of the email. This could be a link at the bottom of the email that says:
    "To unsubscribe from our emails, click here." This makes it easy for subscribers to revoke their consent at any time.
  • Practice Sender Authentication:
    Make sure your emails are sent from your authorized domain by setting up SPF (Sender Policy Framework) and DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) authentication for your domain.
    • DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) is an email authentication method that allows a sender to digitally sign their messages, ensuring they have not been modified in transit.
      • These tools generate cryptographic keys, add signatures to outgoing emails, and verify signatures on incoming emails. These tools help ensure that emails are not tampered with in transit and can be trusted by recipients.
      • Some popular DKIM email authentication tools include OpenSSL, OpenDKIM, and Microsoft Exchange Server.
      • Configure DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) to specify how email receivers should handle unauthenticated emails from your domain.
    • SPF (Sender Policy Framework) is an email authentication protocol that allows domain owners to specify which mail servers are authorized to send emails on their behalf. SPF helps to prevent email spoofing and improve email deliverability.

  • Follow Email Content Best Practices:
    • Craft your emails with engaging and relevant content, avoiding excessive sales-driven or spammy language.
    • Use a good balance of text and images in your emails.
    • Avoid using excessive capitalization, excessive punctuation, or misleading subject lines.

  • Be Consistent and Engaging:
    • To keep your subscribers engaged and prevent them from marking your emails as spam, it's important to regularly send them valuable and interesting content.
    • Avoid long periods of inactivity in your email campaigns, as this can increase the chances of your emails being marked as spam when you start sending them again.

  • Stay Up to Date with Email Service Provider's Guidelines:
    • Familiarize yourself with your ESP's documentation, guidelines, and best practices to ensure you maintain a healthy email-sending practice.
    • Staying informed of changes to rules and regulations is important.

Here are some other top-notch best practices for you to consider implementing:

  • Personalization: Incorporate the candidate's name and specific details like their skills or past roles. Personalization shows that the email is specifically intended for them and can significantly increase engagement.

  • Clear and Concise Subject Lines: Use subject lines that are straightforward and directly related to the content, like "Join Our Team as a [Job Title] at [Company Name]!". This immediately informs the candidate of the email's purpose.

  • Relevant Content: Ensure the content is tailored to the candidate's experience and interests. Highlight the aspects of the job that best match their skills and previous roles to catch their interest and show that you've done your homework.

  • Benefits and Company Culture: Clearly outline what benefits the job offers, such as health insurance, retirement plans, or flexible working hours. Also, provide a glimpse into the company culture and values to help candidates visualize working there.

  • Call to Action (CTA): Have a clear CTA such as "Apply Now," "Learn More," or "Schedule an Interview." The CTA should stand out and guide the candidate on what to do next if they're interested.

  • Visual Appeal: Use a professional and appealing layout with easy-to-read fonts. If possible, include the company's logo and use its color scheme to reinforce brand identity. A visually appealing email can make a more significant impact.

  • Mobile Optimization: Ensure the email is mobile-friendly since many candidates will view it on their phone for the first time.

  • Success Stories/Testimonials: Adding testimonials or stories from current employees who have had positive experiences and growth within the company can make the job opportunity more relatable and appealing.

Impact of scheduling at the right interval

It's important to schedule emails properly to maintain engagement and prevent overwhelming recipients with too many emails. Email service providers should offer flexible scheduling options and tools to optimize send times.

Here are some considerations for effective email scheduling:

  • Time Zone Segmentation: Email Service Providers (ESPs) offer a useful feature that allows agencies to divide their email lists based on the recipients' time zones. This ensures that emails are delivered at an appropriate time, taking into account the recipient's local time. By avoiding sending emails during inconvenient hours, agencies can increase the possibility of their messages being opened and read.

  • Engagement Metrics Analysis: ESPs should provide agencies with insights into recipient engagement metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and conversions based on historical data. By analyzing these metrics, agencies can identify the optimal times and days to schedule their emails for maximum engagement.

For instance, an agency that operates globally wants to send a product launch announcement to its customers across different time zones. With the help of an ESP that offers time zone segmentation, the agency can schedule the email that has to be sent at a time that aligns with each recipient's local business hours. This targeted approach increases the likelihood of recipients promptly seeing and engaging with the email.

Similarly, using blackout windows, weekend calendars, and holiday calendars can prevent sending emails at inappropriate times, thus increasing overall email engagement.

The Role of Suppression in Preventing Fatigue and Cultivating Brand Positivity

Agencies must understand when to suppress sending non-transactional emails to contacts. They should use suppression management tools provided by ESPs to track the number of non-transactional emails sent to individual contacts within a specific timeframe.

Let's explore how this can be implemented:

  • Suppression Thresholds: Agencies should be able to set suppression thresholds for their email service providers (ESPs). These thresholds specify the maximum number of non-transactional emails a contact should receive within a specific timeframe, such as X times in Y days. When this threshold is reached, the contact is temporarily suppressed from receiving additional non-transactional emails until the specified timeframe has passed.
  • Customization and Exceptions: ESPs should offer agencies the flexibility to set their own suppression thresholds based on their email marketing strategy. In addition, exceptions should be made for specific types of emails, such as time-sensitive offers or special promotions that require multiple communications within a short period. This enables agencies to maintain a balance between customer engagement and avoiding over-communication.

The Benefits of Staggered Email Sending: Small Batch vs Bulk Email

  • Improved deliverability: It's important to improve your email deliverability to avoid being labeled as a nefarious spammer by email providers.
  • Increased open rates: Optimize send times for time zones and use small batch split testing techniques to increase available rates.
  • Better resource management: Better management of resources to avoid a “blow up” of customer support ticket queue.

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