What You Gotta Get Right for Higher Deliverability

By Stephanie Miller
VP, Global Market Development

I was speaking at a webinar this week and the moderator said, "Stephanie, we have 30 seconds. How can marketers avoid being filtered as spam?!"

No pressure, right? Luckily, I talk fast!

I responded with something like this:

"Reaching the inbox is the only way you can earn a response. So it's pretty important to focus on this.

"Avoiding the spam filters is simple in concept: You must be welcome in the inbox - and you must maintain an ongoing reputation for being welcome in the inbox. The minute you bore me, or abuse my trust or send something irrelevant, you are spamming me.

"It's simple in concept, complex in practice. Being relevant and earning a high sender reputation is not a box you can just check off. It's an attitude. It's got to infuse every aspect of your email marketing approach - your content strategy, your frequency caps, your permission practices, your metrics and tracking, how you source your data, process your bounces, and in the approach of every person you hire and train and reward around email marketing success.

"Every time you send an additional mailing this week to pump up revenue, or you mail to a list with a dubious source or you send the same promotion to every person on your file; you are putting your sender reputation at risk. And you are also leaving money on the table.

"There is no good reason NOT to track your inbox placement and work a bit harder to be welcome in the inbox. It's too easy for subscribers to ignore us. And that isn't just for today's mailing, a poor sender reputation will harm you for all your mailings.

"So make sure the people on your file want to be on your file. Give them choices. Know the impact of your practices by actively tracking your sender reputation (or at least knowing it at www.senderscore.org). And be welcome. Relevant. Interesting. Helpful. That is how you avoid the spam filters."

What do you think? How would you answer that question (in 30 seconds!)