Reputation Management…for Your Emails?

You’re certainly already familiar with keeping up a healthy reputation and plenty of positive reviews on Google, Facebook and the other top review sites. Online reputation management is key for cosmetic and plastic surgeons, but you probably haven’t given much thought to the reputation of your emails…and that could be impacting the deliverability of your email newsletters. Read on to see some steps to ensure your email news reaches the most people on your list.

How Is Your Email Rep Determined?

Every email server has a unique IP address, which is used by email providers such as Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook to identify where an email is being sent from and its likelihood of being spam or unwanted content for a recipient. The email providers attribute a reputation to that IP

based on factors such as:

• IP age
• IP location
• Content
• Email volume and frequency
• Prior email content
• DNS pointer records (PTR)

In extreme cases, there are even blacklists of entire domains where sent messages will be flagged as spam. But if you are following the rules and providing quality content to those who have asked for it, your IP will increase its sending reputation over time, gradually improving deliverability rates. With all email providers taking more and more steps to battle against spam and provide a good user experience, it is more challenging than ever to maintain a high sending reputation so that you maximize your email deliverability.

10 Ways to Maintain a Stellar Reputation

The best way to stay in the good graces of the top email providers is to deliver quality content to people who actually want to see it. Sounds simple enough! Here’s how to make that happen in practice:

1. Continuously clean your email lists and only send emails to engaged contacts. If a contact has been on your list for a year or more but never opened a single message, it’s time to remove them. Also review hard bounces so you keep your overall bounce rate under 1%.
2. Keep a close eye on deliverability and open rates. If you have one email domain with a much lower open rate (for instance, users with @outlook.com email addresses), that is a clear signal that your emails are not being delivered there.
3. Deliver the content people signed up for. If you told them you were going to send a monthly newsletter, and now all of a sudden they are hearing from you weekly, your spam reports will go up.
4. Use a consistent “From” address tied to your website domain so that it’s clear who’s sending the message. Sending from different email boxes (for instance, sending from staff@plasticsurgeon.com one month and info@plasticsurgeon.com the next month) is more likely to cause your messages to end up in spam folders.
5. Add alt text to every image in an email blast, including logos and icons in the header or footer of the message. Some images may not load depending on the email provider or a user’s email settings, so having a relevant text description of what the image is about helps to clue in the reader.
6. Set up a “preference center” to allow email recipients to change how often they want to receive emails and choose the types of emails they get.
7. Optimize your subject lines so you maximize opens. We use many tools and best practices to develop compelling, eye-catching email subject lines that stand out in the sea of Inbox madness.
8. Always include your full business name and address in the footer of an email send, along with a clearly marked unsubscribe link.
9. Never send an image-only email. Instead, mix up text and HTML images, and thoroughly test the display in the most common email systems and devices prior to sending. Image-only emails are more likely to get flagged as potential spam, and if they don’t display properly, are more likely to be reported as spam by users.
10. Never ever ever ever ever purchase an email list. It’s just bad business and it’s just asking for trouble. The list of emails you receive are almost undoubtedly worthless and you can never be sure the list contains only email addresses that are open to marketing communications. They for certain have not properly opted into receiving emails from you. It’s a complete waste of time and money and could even put the valid email list you’ve worked hard to build in jeopardy.

We take email reputation seriously and have policies and processes in place to maximize deliverability for our clients. Breaking or bending the rules just ain’t worth it and will result in hits to your sending reputation that will make your email campaigns less effective.