If you rely on your webmaster for good email deliverability then watch out. There are at least three distinct factors that can mean atrocious deliverability for your email marketing campaign. Crummy deliverability means crummy profits, so getting to the root of your deliverability problem is key to cranking up revenues.
I'm going to reveal three of the most disastrous deliverability killers, so you can steer clear of the spam filters and reach your subscribers the way God intended. Frankly - these days, I recommend to my clients and friends to go the “lazy marketers route” and use a paid automatic responder service- if only for the bump in deliverability. Prices can range from free, to thousands of dollars per month, so do your homework in advance before signing any contracts or setting up an account. Still, even a hefty monthly charge could give you ROI immediately if it improves your deliverability, so test, track, and evaluate often.
For the more DIY entrepreneur, there's a temptation to host your automatic responder yourself. Open source software like PHPlist and GNU Mailman offer a self hosted approach to email marketing, but along with all the benefits they boast come some pretty serious
drawbacks in the area of deliverability:
1) IP Reputation. Depending on your hosting service, you might be on an IP address that's shared with other users. Watch Out. If the other users sharing your IP are causing complaints, then the IP you rely on for deliverability could be blacklisted, graylisted, or blocked entirely.
2) Domain Reputation. If you're using a URL shortener like Bit.ly or tinyurl.com, then you could be in for a nasty deliverability shock. Some domains have tarnished reputations due to
unscrupulous marketers and SPAMmers, so always remember to keep the links in your emails clean. The best way to do that is to make redirects on your own domain that forward people to the destined page.
3) Server or Database Quirks. Sometimes, for one reason or another, you'll go to send out a broadcast and it just sits there. None of it gets delivered and you don't know why. Then, out of the blue a week later, all of your messages you've been trying to send come through at the
same time. Now you've got upset subscribers who mark you as SPAM, and the results you were hoping for are lackluster at best.
Why would that happen?
Well, what your webmaster might have failed to tell you is that sometimes, for whatever reason, a mailing queue gets “stuck.” If your webmaster isn't keeping an eye on your mailing
queue, then nobody notices except you and your subscribers. “Stuck deliverability” can be a human error on the part of your webmaster, or just a software quirk. But either way, it means your deliverability is 0% and that means ZERO profits.
Upgrading from a self hosted automatic responder to a paid service might seem like a risky step just to improve deliverability - but the security of having a 24 hour support line you can call if a mailing goes bump in the night means your emails will get delivered. Whether you improve your deliverability on your own, or by switching to a paid automatic responder that boasts killer deliverability, it doesn't really matter. What matters is that you send effective, money making emails and get good deliverability so they reach your ever growing list of subscribers.
Below is a video you need to see. The eccentric guy you're about to meet has unquestionably
cracked the code to extracting powerful income from email marketing. You're about to discover exactly how you can get the most bang for your email marketing buck (warning... it's weird - you'll see what I mean about 3 minutes in)…
http://www.ListBuilding.com/deliverability
