Your Email Inbox Guide 101: How To Increase Your Rates
Email Inbox Guide: What is Inboxing and How Can it Help?
Reaching the email inbox is the process of combining a company’s digital and physical presence to create a unified experience for customers.
Inboxing can be done in many different ways, from creating a seamless customer experience by merging online and offline marketing efforts to making the physical business location more appealing to potential customers.
In this inbox guide, we will discover some of the benefits of inboxing that improve customer retention, increases foot traffic, and helps with brand awareness.
Imagine if all your sent emails land in the spam box instead of the inbox, that sounds horrible right? Together, we will try to give the best tools, tactics, and best practices in order to reach high even very high inbox rates.
How to Get People Engaged in Your Emails
Email marketing is one of the most powerful ways to reach your customers and prospects, the is no doubt. But before you can send a single email, you need to get people to opt-in.
In this article, we’re going to cover how you can optimize your email opt-in form for better conversion rates.
The first thing you should do is to make sure that your form is easy to find on the page and stands out from other content. If it’s not easy for visitors to see, they won’t know that it’s there or what it does. You should also avoid placing it in a scrollable area or behind other content so that visitors can’t access it without scrolling.
How to Increase Your B2B Success Rate With The Right Marketing Tools
In the B2B world, it is important to use the right marketing tools. These tools will help you improve your lead generation and conversion rates.
There are many B2B marketing tools on the market, but not all of them are worth your time and money. It is important to choose the right ones that will have a positive impact on your business.
1) Salesforce Marketing Cloud: This tool has a large number of features that can help you grow your business in many ways. For example, it helps you with email automation, social media marketing, website design, and analytics.
2) HubSpot: This is another great B2B marketing tool that can help you increase your sales leads by up to 459%. It also has a CRM system that helps you track leads
In the b2b world, it’s important to use the right marketing tools. These tools will help you improve your lead generation and conversion rates
What are the Best Practices in Email Marketing?
Email marketing is an essential part of any online business. It is one of the most cost-effective, low-hassle ways to reach your customers and prospects.
A good email marketing strategy can help you to generate more leads, convert more sales, and grow your customer base. And if you want to build a successful email marketing campaign, it’s important to follow a few best practices:
- Use high-quality content in your emails
- Send targeted emails based on customer actions
- Include links in your email messages that lead back to your website
If you are new to email marketing, or if it’s your first campaign
DONTs
Do not send with your personal or free email inbox like Gmail, AOL, Yahoo, etc. These email providers allow only a limited sending per day, which is generally from 1 to 200 per day, rarely it can reach 500 emails per day.
DOs
In order to reach the inbox, sending has to be ALWAYS with your professional email or, preferably, email marketing platform: Google Workspace, Outlook Xchange, SMTP, Microsoft 365, Zoho, Sendgrid, Amazon SES, Mailgun, iCloud +, SendinBlue, Roundcube, Elastic Email, etc. Moreover, if you would like to speed up the outreach process, you can subscribe for a warm-up plan with SMTPing.
If you are an intermediary or advanced
Sending, segmentation, and sending frequency (for both B2B and B2C)
After your first sending, you can segment your mailing list according to different indicators, the main ones are:
1. Openers
people who were attracted or curious by your headline but not enough by your content or message. These can be solicited once in 10-15 days
2. Clickers
people who have shown interest in your content or product and already checked your website, page, or landing page. These can be solicited once in 1 week
3. Non-openers
Those who did not open your e-mail or simply because your email landed in the spam folder or promotions. You can either send them a reminder e-mail containing a “warning” subject like this one: We will remove you from our mailing list soon [can we stay friends?]
Hey there,
We’ve noticed that you don’t read our emails much, so we’ll be removing you from our mailing list soon.
Unless you opened this email in which case, woohoo, we’re still friends! We’ll try to send you more fun and interesting emails, and more promotions.
If you want to unsubscribe, just click here.
General recommendations
a. For cold mailing
- 1-to-1 prospection
- Generally for B2B
- B2B lead generation
- Generally, it is for the business environment
Make sure that you have always an email signature to show who you are, not necessarily who you really are, one persona is enough:
- Profile picture (not necessarily yours)
- Company name
- Company Email
- Company website
- Physical address
Unknown emails are like ghosts, nobody will read them.
b. For mass mailing
When it comes to bulk or mass emailing, we talk more about:
- General updates
- Newsletter
- B2C lead generation
- Discounts and new offers (promotions, coupon codes, Black Friday, etc.)
Furthermore, make sure that you have always a footer with a company name (or website) with full details:
- A Website URL
- A complete physical address (not necessarily a real address)
- A healthy HTML template without spam words
- An unsubscribe link
Always use an unsubscription link at the bottom of your template or message, here is a list of the tags (by platform), just copy and paste the tag on the bottom of your HTML code: SendGrid, SendPulse, UniSender, Mailwizz, Mautic, OneSignal, MailerLite, MailChimp, SendinBlue, Sendy, etc.
To keep your list in a good health, you have to delete the unsubscribers from your list, if this option is not automatic.
Sending platforms
If you are on Shopify: Omnisend
If you are on WordPress: Mailpoet
If you are on another CMS: you can create your own mailing system
OUR RECOMMENDATIONS:
1. Unisender 2. Sendgrid 3. Sendpulse 4. Elasticmail
Otherwise, if you want to have your own bulk email marketing system, you can create a lifetime application, just here: https://www.fiverr.com/alaatouil/setup-your-smtp-email-marketing-system
Landing page (if you are doing lead generation):
A landing page is crucial if your main goal is to generate leads. Unless you charged a developer to make a website connected to a CRM (where you receive the leads), you can make one on your own on :
Example: Unicornplatform.com
WordPress (with wp forms)
DO NOT FORGET
A continuous warmup will increase significantly your inbox rate for both cold and mass mailing.
Sending strategy
1. Send emails in bulk with a common script, sequence, or template with your professional email. This is recommended if you have a homogeneous environment (a common product you prospect for, the same industry for all the targets, etc.)
2. Send by batches, if you have more than 2 products to commercialize or more than 2 targets. You can always target by segments (company revenues, category, company size, etc)
3. Individual, if you prefer to contact each prospect with a custom message
You can also make cold-calling campaigns too, with phone numbers.
- Send emails in bulk with a common script, sequence, or template with your professional email.
- Send by batches, if you have more than 2 products to commercialize or more than 2 targets.
- Individual, if you prefer to contact each prospect with a custom message
- You can also make cold-calling campaigns too, with phone numbers.
Latest tips
1. If you opted for cold mailing
It is recommended to use these leads in batches of 200 to 500 e.mails per day (or per server). This ensures that your emails do not start bouncing or get marked as spam due to high volume being sent in a short span of time. Typically, the spam filters of email providers get triggered when they see a rapid influx of outgoing emails from one user.
Moreover, spreading your emails over several days will allow you to analyze the responses efficiently. It’s a known fact that not all of your leads will reply immediately. Having a manageable batch size aids in proper management of the replies you receive, enabling you to take necessary follow-up actions in a timely manner.
It’s always a better approach to prioritize quality over quantity. Writing well-crafted, personalized emails rather than a mass generic one will likely increase your response rates. Remember, every lead is unique, and each leads demands individual attention.
To maximize the effectiveness of your leads, don’t forget to plan your schedule meticulously. Strike a balance between the number of outgoing emails and time set aside for lead nurturing activities.
Also, consider the timing of your emails. Depending on your leads’ geographical location, some time slots may yield better open and reply rates than others.
Lastly, always track your email’s performance metrics. This vital information will provide insights into your clients’ behavior, enabling you to adjust your email strategy for better results in the future.
Utilize these best practices, and you’ll surely witness improvements in your email marketing campaigns. The key is to remain attentive to your leads’ reactions, and respond with understanding and patience.
2. If you opted for a mass mailing solution
- make sure the HTML template is optimized: not too many colors, not too many photos, white background
- choose a topic (title) that doesn’t talk about m.oney, such as: Calling a briefing, date and time of your webinar, the day I decided to change everything …, etc.
- a signature (for cold mailing) or a footer (for mass mailing): always a signature to show who you are (not necessarily who you really are, one persona is enough, and preferably a girl. This also applies to the footer: complete physical address (not necessarily a real address, you can bluff).
- unsubscribe link and unsubscribe tag: in all types of mailings, the unsubscribe link is STRICTLY REQUIRED. What is it used for? simply to avoid complaints. You can check the list of the UNSUBSCRIBE TAGS here, according to which platform you use
3. The landing page
Prepare well your landing page (Typeform, HubSpot) if you have one, and well connected to a CRM. Your landing page is typically the first point of contact for your target audience, so it’s essential to make an impactful first impression. The general design, layout and content of your landing page have to be meticulously planned to effectively communicate your brand’s value proposition and encourage conversions.
Using platforms like Typeform and HubSpot allows you to develop dynamic and engaging landing pages that are optimized for conversions. Both of these platforms provide an extensive range of templates and customization options. Craft a compelling headline, use high-quality visuals and craft persuasive calls-to-action to inspire potential customers to take the next step in their buyer’s journey.
However, a compelling and aesthetically pleasing landing page is only the first step. What happens post-conversion is equally as important to your marketing strategy. This is where your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system comes into play.
Connecting your landing page to a CRM helps you track and manage all interactions with your prospects and customers. From the moment a visitor submits a form on your landing page, their details should flow into your CRM. This enables automatic follow-ups and segmentation for targeted marketing activities. Ensure that your CRM is properly integrated to collect and manage all valuable customer information.
But remember, simply integrating your landing page with a CRM is not enough. You must structure your CRM to align with your business goals. Segment your audience based on their behaviors, preferences, source etc. and tailor your communication strategy accordingly.
In conclusion, the real game starts with setting up a well-designed landing page, but that alone won’t win you the match. Your landing page should be strongly coupled with a robust CRM strategy, backed by an optimal utilization of marketing automation platforms like HubSpot or Typeform. This pairs a seamless user experience with efficient lead management to drive conversions and foster lasting relationships with customers.
4. Check your sending domain reputation
Check if your sending domain is not blacklisted as well, it’s very important for deliverability. The most know tool for that is MxToolBox.
MxToolBox is an incredibly user-friendly website that is designed to analyze server diagnostics of your sending domains. It checks whether your domain is listed in all major public Realtime Blackhole Lists (RBL) and it can be utilized without requiring you to pay any fees.
Just input the domain name or IP address that you would like to check, and then click the “Blacklist Check” button. If your domain or IP has been reported to be distributing spam, it will show up in MxToolBox’s comprehensive list of RBLs.
It is advisable to check your domain status on a regular basis, as blacklisting could happen at any time and can potentially impact your email deliverability rates negatively. Failure to abide by this could lead to your emails ending up in spam inbox, thus drastically reducing the effectiveness of your email campaign.
MxToolBox additionally has premium services that provide automatic monitoring and alerts when your IP or domain is blacklisted. This can potentially save you hours of trouble by immediately letting you know when an issue arises.
In summary, the reputation of your sending domain is one of the most crucial factors in ensuring your emails reach their intended recipients. By regularly monitoring your server diagnostics on MxToolBox, you are taking a proactive stance to maintain your domain’s good standing in the eyes of the digital world.
Contact and Inquiries
If you have any technical questions or requests for advice, don’t hesitate, to write to: contact@smtpedia.com
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