Utilizing a campaign scheduler for outreach is a common strategy. However, while scheduling emails based on prospect time zones is a typical practice, it becomes challenging with a global audience across multiple time zones. Basic schedulers lack the sophistication to address these complexities, emphasizing the necessity of an advanced campaign scheduler.
Additionally, when multiple users share a domain, basic schedulers may pause the campaign for one respondent while others continue to receive emails.
This inconsistency risks recipients marking emails as spam, harming domain reputation. Also, basic schedulers often lack the ability to detect responses and pause campaigns for all recipients within the same domain.
Another factor to consider is the management of the Do Not Contact (DNC) list. Basic schedulers may encounter challenges in handling advanced requirements, such as emailing a particular individual within a domain listed under the DNC.
Simply put, basic campaign schedulers fall short of meeting evolving/improved outreach needs and managing spam effectively. To navigate these challenges and maintain compliance, partnering with specialists well-versed in complex campaign requirements is crucial.
Campaign scheduler features
This is where our advanced campaign scheduler changes the landscape with the following bundle of features.
Prospect-level timezone: Ensures emails arrive at the optimal time for each recipient, boosting open rates.
Safety limits: Sets sending limits to avoid overwhelming recipients and improve deliverability.
Reply safety setting: Pauses campaigns for a domain if someone replies, preventing redundant emails.
DNC list exceptions: Allows for targeted outreach to specific contacts even if their domain is on a Do Not Contact list.
Email validation: Verifies email addresses to ensure they’re deliverable, reducing bounces and improving sender reputation.
Campaign level: Provides settings and controls specific to each campaign for better organization.
Sending holiday calendar: Prevents emails from going out on holidays, ensuring recipients see your message at the right time.
Missing merge tag detection: Alerts you to missing personalization tags in emails, preventing generic messages and improving engagement.
Now, let’s find out each of these features in detail and make regulations-friendly outreach.
Prospect-level timezone
One of the biggest hurdles in email outreach is ensuring your message reaches recipients when they’re most receptive. Traditional schedulers often send emails at a specified time set by you as per the prospects’ timezone. However, this may not be enoughwhich might not translate well for prospects in different time zones. This can lead to emails landing in inboxes at inconvenient hours, like the middle of the night, significantly decreasing open rates.
How do we do it
You can manually enter it yourself. The key benefit is dynamic scheduling. Once SmartReach knows the prospect’s time zone, it automatically delivers the email at the most convenient time for them, increasing your chances of getting that all-important open.
Benefit
By sending emails when recipients are most likely to be checking their inboxes (during business hours in their time zone), SmartReach significantly increases the chances of your message being opened and read. Studies show that emails sent at the optimal time can have open rates that are up to 30% higher.
Let’s understand this practically
Imagine you’re a marketing manager for a company selling premium coffee subscriptions. You have a well-crafted email campaign promoting a new single-origin blend from Ethiopia to a global audience with different time zones.
Imagine you’re a marketing manager for a company selling premium coffee subscriptions. You have a well-crafted email campaign promoting a new single-origin blend from Ethiopia to a global audience with different time zones..
The traditional approach
- You schedule the email campaign to go out at 9:00 AM PST, your typical workday starting time.
- This might reach your West Coast prospects at a decent hour, but what about those on the East Coast? It’s still 12:00 PM there, potentially during their lunch break or a busy meeting.
- In Europe, it’s already late afternoon or evening, a time people might not be checking work emails.
The SmartReach advantage
- With SmartReach’s prospect-level timezone targeting, your campaign leverages your CRM data that includes customer locations.
- The system automatically schedules the email delivery for each recipient:
- West Coast recipients receive the email at 9:00 AM PST, a convenient time to check their inboxes.
- East Coast recipients get it at a more appropriate time like 12:00 PM EST, perhaps after their lunch break.
- European prospects might receive it in the late morning or early afternoon of their local time, again, maximizing the chance of opening the email.
Safety limits
Email deliverability is the most important aspect of your outreach. SmartReach prioritizes deliverability with its safety limits feature, which sets sending restrictions to avoid overwhelming recipients and improve the chances of your emails reaching their intended destination.
There are two main components to SmartReach’s safety limits:
1. Email sending limits
- This feature allows you to set a maximum number of emails you can send to a single recipient per day, per week. You can customize these limits based on your campaign goals and recipient behavior.
For example, you might set a limit of two emails per week to avoid bombarding a prospect with your messages.
2. Domain/Account sending limits
- This feature focuses on the total number of emails you can send to all recipients within a specific domain (e.g., @[abc.com]) within a given timeframe.
- This helps prevent overwhelming an entire organization with your emails, which can trigger spam filters.
Benefits of safety limits
- Reduced spam complaints: By following a measured approach to sending emails, you minimize the risk of recipients marking your messages as spam. This protects your sender reputation and ensures your future emails reach inboxes.
- Improved deliverability rates: Email providers track sender behavior, and consistent adherence to sending limits demonstrates responsible practices. This can lead to higher deliverability rates, meaning more of your emails find their way to inboxes.
Let’s understand this practically
Imagine you’re running an outreach campaign promoting a new line of fitness trackers. Here’s how safety limits in SmartReach can prevent a potential disaster.
- You set a safety limit of two emails per week per recipient. This ensures your target audience receives your messages at a reasonable pace, allowing them to absorb the information and potentially consider your product.
- Additionally, you set a domain sending limit that restricts the total number of emails sent to a particular company domain (e.g., @[xyz.com]) within a specific timeframe. This prevents overwhelming an entire organization at once.
Reply safety setting
Consider this scenario: You’re targeting users within the same company domain. If one person replies, the campaign might pause for them, but others in the domain could still receive emails, potentially causing frustration and damaging your reputation.
Benefit
Prevents redundant emails: With advanced scheduling, you can ensure that when one person from a specific company domain replies to your campaign, the outreach is paused for all other individuals within the same domain. This prevents potential frustration among recipients and safeguards your reputation by avoiding excessive or unwanted emails to the same domain.
Let’s understand this practically
Imagine you’re running an outreach campaign offering free trials for your new project management software. You target a list of companies in the marketing industry.
You set your email campaign to send a series of three emails promoting the free trial, all scheduled to go out within a two-day period. While some recipients might find this informative, others might be overwhelmed or already engaged after the first email.
Let’s say a marketing manager at [Company A] finds your first email valuable and decides to reply, expressing interest in trying the software. Unfortunately, your standard scheduler keeps firing off the remaining emails in the sequence, even though [Company A] has already indicated interest. This creates unnecessary clutter in their inbox and could lead to frustration.
The SmartReach advantage
With SmartReach’s reply safety setting enabled, things unfold differently:
- The marketing manager at [Company A] replies to the first email, expressing interest in the free trial.
- SmartReach detects the reply from [Company A]’s domain (@[Company A]).
- The reply safety setting automatically pauses the campaign for the entire @[Company A] domain. This ensures no further emails from this campaign are sent to any other email addresses within that company.
DNC list exceptions
DNC list exceptions allow you to create a specific list of contacts within a domain that might be flagged on a DNC list. Here’s the key distinction:
- While the entire domain might be flagged as DNC, you might have individual contacts within that domain who have explicitly opted-in to receive your emails.
- SmartReach’s DNC list exceptions allow you to upload or create a list of these specific contacts, ensuring your emails reach them even though the broader domain might be flagged.
Benefits of DNC List Exceptions
- Targeted Outreach: This feature allows you to reach specific, interested contacts within a domain that might otherwise be blocked due to DNC restrictions.
- Compliance with Regulations: By focusing on confirmed opt-in contacts, you demonstrate adherence to anti-spam regulations that often allow for outreach to those who have explicitly consented to receive emails.
Email validation
Email validation, a key feature in SmartReach, plays a vital role in this process by verifying email addresses and filtering out invalid ones.
SmartReach’s email validation integrates seamlessly with the advanced scheduler, acting as a safety net before your meticulously planned emails go out. Here’s how it works:
- Pre-Campaign Validation: Before your scheduled emails even hit the queue, SmartReach can verify your entire list in real-time or in batches.
- Improved Scheduling Accuracy: By eliminating invalid addresses, you ensure your schedule reflects only deliverable emails, preventing disruptions and missed opportunities.
- Maintaining Sender Reputation: Advanced scheduling relies on a consistent sending pattern. Reduced bounces due to validation protect your sender reputation, allowing your emails to continue landing in inboxes as planned.
Benefits
- Smoother Campaign Execution: By filtering out bounces, you ensure your advanced schedule runs flawlessly, delivering emails at the optimal times you’ve set.
- Optimized Resource Allocation: Reduced bounces free up resources within the scheduler, allowing you to focus on reaching a wider, more engaged audience.
Campaign level scheduling
By offering an advanced scheduler at the campaign level, SmartReach allows you to create targeted sending strategies for each unique campaign. Here’s what this means:
- Customizable sending schedule: Set the start and end date/time for your campaign. This ensures your emails are sent within a specific timeframe, aligning with your overall marketing strategy.
- If you provide prospects’ country or time zone, then the system will send the emails in their time zone, else the emails will go out in the “Fallback Time Zone”.
Benefits
Improved organization: Campaign-level controls keep your entire scheduling process organized and transparent. You can easily visualize and manage the timing of each campaign.
Targeted outreach: Tailored scheduling based on campaign goals and audience considerations increases the impact of your message.
Holiday calendar
SmartReach’s sending holiday calendar empowers you to navigate the holiday season with ease.
- Pre-Populated Calendar: SmartReach comes pre-loaded with a calendar of major holidays observed in various countries and regions.
- Customization Options: You can easily add or remove specific holidays from the calendar based on your target audience and campaign goals.
- Automatic Scheduling Exclusion: During designated holidays on the calendar, SmartReach automatically excludes them from your email sending schedule. This ensures your emails don’t go out on days when your audience is likely to be disengaged.
Benefits
Improved deliverability: Sending emails at the right time increases the chances of recipients opening and engaging with them. The sending holiday calendar helps you avoid congested inboxes, leading to better deliverability rates.
Missing merge tag detection
SmartReach’s missing merge tag detection acts as a guardian of personalization.
Ever write an email with a missing “Dear [Name]” and accidentally sent it out? SmartReach prevents that frustration! It scans your email as you write, highlighting any missing personalization tags like names or companies. This ensures your emails are personal and engaging, boosting results and avoiding the awkwardness of generic greetings.
Benefits
- Enhanced personalization: By identifying missing merge tags, SmartReach ensures you send emails that truly speak to your audience, increasing engagement and brand recall.
- Error prevention: Real-time scanning reduces the risk of accidentally sending generic emails, protecting your brand reputation and campaign performance.
- Improved efficiency: Alerts allow you to fix missing tags quickly, saving you time and preventing delays in sending your campaign.
Final words
With changing SPAM regulation traditional email scheduling is not enough.
Sending impersonal emails at the wrong times can annoy recipients and get you flagged as spam.
SmartReach’s advanced scheduler fixes this with features like time zone targeting to ensure optimal delivery and safety limits to avoid overwhelming inboxes. It even stops sending to those who reply, prevents sending to uninterested domains, and checks for personalization errors.
Stop the frustration and improve your email outreach with SmartReach!
