You juggle a hundred things at once in your business – managing your team, delighting clients, and driving growth. The last thing you need is a technical headache, especially one that directly impacts your bottom line.
We’ve heard it countless times: “My email is not working,” “My emails are going to my client’s spam folder,” or “I sent an email, and they never saw it”. This isn’t just frustrating; it’s a serious roadblock for your business. This post will walk you through the essential, non-technical steps to ensure your emails hit the inbox, not the junk folder, and protect your brand from unseen cyber risks.
This is part 2 in our email deliverability series – read part 1: Don’t Let Your Emails Go Astray: A Small Business Guide to Email Deliverability
Beyond the Tech: The Human & Business Side of Email Deliverability
You may have already handled the technical side of email – setting up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records. But if your emails are still landing in spam, you’re missing a crucial piece of the puzzle: your email’s reputation and the non-technical factors that influence it. Think of it like this: having a driver’s license (the technical setup) is one thing, but driving safely and building a good reputation on the road (your sender behavior) is what really counts.
A hacked website, for instance, can instantly destroy your email deliverability. One of our clients, a marketing agency, had their website compromised and didn’t even know it. Their emails – even simple day-to-day project updates – started landing in spam folders. They had to resort to using personal email addresses just to keep their business running. This highlights a key problem for business owners like you: unrecognized cyber risks and a reliance on fragmented, underutilized systems.
Building Your Domain’s Reputation & Trust
Your domain name is your brand’s digital identity, and its history plays a significant role in your email’s success.
Age and Domain Type Matter: An established .com, .com.au, or .co.uk domain often comes with a built-in level of trust. Newer domain extensions like .io or .beauty can be treated more suspiciously by email providers, requiring more effort to build a good reputation.
Protect Your Brand: Phishing scams often use tiny misspellings of your domain name. To protect your brand, it’s a good idea to buy those similar domains, even if you don’t plan to use them, to prevent others from impersonating you.
Give It Time: Don’t buy a brand new domain and immediately start mass-emailing. Ideally, wait at least three months, and make sure you have an established website on it first. If you need a simple, quick site, a service like Card (carrd.co) can get you started for around $20 per year.
The Content You Send & How You Send It
What’s in your email is just as important as the technical setup.
Avoid Spammy Language: Use genuine, concise, and valuable language in your emails. Spammy subject lines (“Free gift!” or “Get this now!”) and an excessive number of links can trigger spam filters.
Simplify Your Links: Every link in your email increases its spam score. We discovered that even social media icons in the footer were forcing some of our emails into spam. Focus on one clear call-to-action (CTA) and get your recipients to do one thing.
Use AI Wisely: AI is a powerful tool, but don’t just copy and paste its output. Use it to generate ideas or a first draft, but always edit the content to ensure it sounds like you and doesn’t contain repetitive, easily – spotted AI language.
The Art of Warming Up Your Email List
If you have a new domain or a list you haven’t emailed in a while, you can’t just blast a thousand emails at once. This looks like spam and will land you in trouble.
Start Small with Transactional Emails: Begin by sending low-volume, genuine emails to people you know, like colleagues, friends, and family. Ask them to reply or click a link – these positive signals help build your reputation.
Clean Your List: Before any marketing campaign, run your list through an email cleaning service. This removes old, inactive, or bounced addresses, which are a major red flag for email providers.
Segment and Drip: Segment your list into tiers based on engagement. Start by sending small batches to your most engaged contacts first. Use a “drip” function in your email marketing tool to send emails slowly over time, rather than all at once, which looks less spammy.
Monitor Your Spam Rate: Your top priority is to keep your spam rate below 0.1% – and never above 0.3%. A high spam rate, even from a small number of emails, can get you blocked from sending emails entirely, as it did for one of our clients.
Gaining Peace of Mind
Navigating these technical and non-technical challenges can be a huge time sink, pulling you away from what you do best – running your business. The cost of inaction is high, leading to lost revenue, reputational damage, and employee frustration.
By taking proactive steps to secure your systems and manage your email reputation, you gain the peace of mind that comes from knowing your business is protected and your communications are getting through. It’s about building a reliable IT foundation that supports your growth and allows you to focus on your genius zone.
If you’re an ambitious business owner feeling overwhelmed by these issues, we’re here to help. We specialize in providing that tech-relieved feeling by ensuring your systems are working seamlessly and securely.
