What can I do to get my newsletter to the subscribers’ INBOX?

July 6, 2022 by Florina Coca • Marketing • •

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The road to the subscriber inbox is paved with many unknown things. Surely you already know this if you communicate with subscribers through the newsletter. In the middle of a major email campaign, you’ve probably wondered at least once: what can I do to make sure my newsletter lands mostly in my subscribers’ inbox? What is the secret of a good inbox rate? What are the big brands doing to get good results?

Well dear email enthusiasts, we also get a lot of questions like this, so in this article you will find out what you can do to optimize your newsletter so that it arrives in your subscribers’ inbox and what is the role of the email marketing service provider in terms of deliverability.

In this article you will discover the route from your newsletter to the inbox:

The factors that determine the success of email campaigns

To get a quick visual overview regarding the success of email campaigns, here are the three factors that determine it: 33.33% is the email marketing provider or platform, 33.33% is the quality of the list of subscribers and 33.33% is the content sent.

Send email campaigns to the inbox. The role of the service provider.

In vain you created a newsletter with a superb design and a convincing message, if it does not reach the subscribers’ inbox. And nowadays it’s simple, because you don’t have to write HTML code anymore, but use a drag & drop newsletter editor. Obviously we’re not talking about a 100% inbox rate because it doesn’t exist. But it is important that most newsletters reach this main folder: INBOX, so that you have maximum chances of being open.

Difference between email delivery rate and inbox rate

What you can have close to 100% is just the email delivery rate. Anything over 95% is considered a good delivery rate. Through its distributed multi-cloud infrastructure, the NewsMAN email marketing platform provides an average delivery rate of 99.87% for mass email campaigns.

But with the inbox rate is something else. A ReturnPath study from 2018 shows that the average inbox rate is 85% and the percentage drops to 79% if we talk about commercial emails. In 2019, another Return Path study shows that the overall inbox rate has dropped to 84%.

There is no perfection here, but you can certainly improve the average inbox rate by a few good percentages, we promise. As we said before, there are things that belong to us, the email marketing service provider, and there are things that belong to you, the one who sends the campaigns. There are technical standards and checklists, and there is scoring and content checking.

The inbox rate and the NewsMAN email marketing platform

Behind the scenes, if we were to unpack it a bit, the NewsMAN system is carefully designed to help you send your email campaigns to the inbox and your percentage of inboxing rate to increase. We send campaigns in a smart, fast and secure way . We have real-time alerts, we constantly monitor everything and manage whatever you think is technical jargon such as blacklisting, email throttling, spamtraps, DNS failover, etc. We have bandwidth for millions of emails and DDOS protection.

All these things matter. And let’s not forget what is more important and helps the most in the inbox: dedicated servers, dedicated and shared IP pools and obviously IP warming and whitelisting.

In order not to continue with the jargon, briefly, we eliminate everything that would reduce your deliverability and reputation and we technically optimize everything through the best resources and sending systems. From the carefully created infrastructure and the monitored and automated systems, to the small details like the automatic addition of the unsubscribe link if you forgot to put it or the removal from the subscriber list of email addresses with bad reputation.

We manage everything that means technical so that your care is limited only to the creation and scheduling of the email campaigns. You can read more about what we do for you to send newsletters to the subscribers’ inbox and have increased deliverability.

If you don’t have a free NewsMAN account yet, you can create one by hitting on the button below and in just a few clicks you can start sending email campaigns.

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Send the newsletter to the inbox. The role of the marketer

As you’ve learned in the previous paragraphs, the inbox rate for emailing campaigns is only 33% dependent on the email marketing service used. The rest is up to you, as an email marketer.

However, we are happy to fill any information gaps you may have in the field of email marketing, which is why we have put together some specific tips on what to do to have a good inbox box rate.

Here’s what you can do to make sure the newsletter you send reaches your subscribers’ inbox:

1. Authenticate the newsletter sending domain

One of the best practices for sending email campaigns is to validate and authenticate the newsletter domain. When you send a newsletter to your subscribers, the recipients’ server instantly checks which domain it is, if it is authenticated by DNS, what reputation it has, from which IP address the email was sent, etc. In short, it’s when you tell the receiving server who you are.

Thus, if your site is ok, the domain and the list of subscribers are also fine (you collect them, you don’t buy them), then you only have benefits when it comes to validating the domain of sending campaigns. Finally, you avoid email fraud, the spam folder and you increase your inbox rate.=

2. Optimize email content for the inbox

Email clients use filters to distribute messages into different folders

To prevent your newsletter from reaching the spam folder:

use beautiful descriptive language intended for the reading audience;
do not overuse unwanted, commercial or emergency words;
avoid complicated words, speak the client’s language;
appeal to emotions or arouse curiosity;
do not write with too many colors and fonts of all sizes;
do not use large images;
do not attach pdf files, use links to them instead;
make sure the links are in https format and start with your domain;
use an ok sender address, such as news@domain.com and not 123yes@domain.com;
avoid using amounts in the email subject line;
don’t write too many capital letters.

Find out more about how to create a successful newsletter that converts.

3. Use double opt-in newsletter signup forms

Collect subscribers through double opt-in subscription forms – those in which people check that they subscribe to the newsletter and agree with the terms of the site, and to confirm the subscription they also receive an email. Thus, you make sure that you will have in the list of subscribers only valid email addresses and interested contacts that have confirmed the registration.

These things help you with your inbox rate. A list of purchased subscribers would have been quite the opposite and would have only brought you inconvenience.

4. Ask your subscribers to add you to their address book

The surest way to avoid spam is to ask subscribers to add you to their contact list in their address book. This way, email client filters will know how to put you in their inbox.

5. Send targeted email marketing campaigns

Segment subscribers based on the information you have about them, for example: gender, location, purchase preferences, but also based on their behavior in the newsletter. You can ask them to choose their preferences directly from the subscription form, when you invite them to subscribe to the newsletter. Later, you can segment subscribers according to their activity in the newsletter.

6. Keep an active and clean list of subscribers

There are several ways to keep your subscriber list up to date. First, you need to make sure that you regularly send newsletters to your subscribers. Not too often to bore them, but not too rarely to forget the brand. For example, 2-4 times a month is the optimal frequency of sending email campaigns found by us.

Secondly, you must have a steady flow of subscribers to your list. This usually means placing your subscription forms strategically and renewing them as needed.

And last but not least, another way to maintain a list of quality subscribers is to segment and clean up the inactive ones. After 6-12 months of campaign sendings, it segments subscribers according to activity. Send a series of re-engagement emails to the inactive ones. Keep only those who answer the wake-up call.

7. The unsubscribe process should be simple

It is important to specify to the subscribers from the moment of registration that their rights are respected according to GDPR, both that their data will be safe but also that they can unsubscribe at any time. The unsubscribe process must be very easy, with one click.

Once they are assured of all this, your brand confidence will increase, as will your inbox rate. And even if there are still unsubscriptions, it will still go because people appreciate the simple steps. Plus it’s good that way, because you’ll only be staying with engaged subscribers.

We hope you found the information in the article useful and we wish you a great inbox rate. If you have any questions, we are waiting for you by email at info @newsman .com or on the live chat.

If you don’t have an account yet, you can try the NewsMAN platform for free, including all eCommerce automations.

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