Engaging Content Helps Email Deliverability
Your email marketing program exists to in some way add to your organization’s bottom line. That might be through sales, brand awareness, relationship building or fundraising if yours is a non-profit. Generating email marketing ROI is your ultimate goal.
That might mean a tendency to emphasize selling in your email marketing messages…and that might work against your email deliverability, which in turn will work against that ROI.
How? Unhappy subscribers report emails as spam, which hurts your reputation and therefore your deliverability. Remember, anything that hurts your sending reputation hurts your email deliverability.
People do want special deals, exclusive offers and limited time promotions. These types of offers belong in your email marketing mix. Offer them more, however, in the form of better content, and you’ll have happier subscribers. You’ll decrease your unsubscribes and the spam complaints that work against your sending reputation, and therefore deliverability.
I used to get frequent emails from a local restaurant chain. And I quickly tired of them. I have seen enough coupons for two-for-one dinners and free cups of chowder to last me a lifetime. When I first signed up, I liked getting the special offers, and I’d dutifully print them out, arrange a meal out with a friend, and use the coupons. But it got old. When I realized that was the only type of email I would receive from this chain, I unsubscribed. Someone who doesn’t work in the email field would like report the emails as spam to stop getting them.
On the other hand, I still welcome the emails I get from a home services referral company. I might not need a chimney sweep or roof repair at the time I receive an email focused on one of those topics, but I enjoy the fun taglines and the engaging content, plus I usually learn from the useful home-care tips they provide.
The restaurant chain offered up the same old “content” time after time. The home services company keeps content fresh. Which one do I still get? The one with the better content.
Consider focusing on engaging content as an email deliverability best practice. Get people engaged with your email messages by offering them more than a price discount, and make that content appealing. Find a voice for it and make it stand out. Make an effort to make it interesting and engaging, for emails people will look forward to receiving and then forwarding or even sharing to their social networks. Engaging content will help you make it to the inbox, and maybe beyond, when people like it enough to share it.
If your emails only sell, you’ll wear out your welcome in the email inbox fairly quickly. And that will hurt your email deliverability rate. To protect or even improve your deliverability, focus on great content as much as you focus on great offers.
- Say “No!” to Wimpy Calls to Action - March 23, 2020
- How a Relational Database Makes Holiday Shopping Pay Off All Year - December 3, 2018
- What is spam, really? - August 31, 2018
