How to Improve Email Deliverability? Cold Email Challenge
Even today, emails are still a powerful and popular tool for sales and marketing professionals to reach prospects. Two significant challenges while adopting email communication: emails going to spam and low response rates.
In a candid chat with Srba, a Sales Leader at Deckrobot, we explore the world of cold emailing. Srba shares valuable insights on how these problems can impact your email delivery and the steps to overcome these.
Before we get going with my conversation with Srba, let’s understand one simple but complex question
What is Email Deliverability?
Email deliverability is like making sure your email reaches the right place – the recipient’s inbox. You know how sometimes emails end up in your spam folder? Well, that’s what we want to avoid. We want our emails to reach the inbox, where people are more likely to see and open them.
Now, to make this happen, we need to consider various things. For instance, the reputation of the sender i.e. your domain reputation, the content of the email, and how engaged the prospect is with your emails. All these factors play a role in ensuring your emails actually get to where they’re supposed to go – the inbox. High email deliverability is super important for businesses because it means more people engage with your emails. So, it’s a big deal.
Now that you know what we speaking about, let’s get back to my conversation. I have broken it down into a few key parts for ease of understanding the topic
Cracking Email Deliverability
We all know the excitement of hitting “send” on a well-crafted email campaign, but what happens when your messages mysteriously vanish? This is a problem Srba is all too familiar with. “Email deliverability is like a puzzle,” he explains, “it can impact your entire cold outreach strategy. So, if your open rates are low, you’ve got to inspect your domain.”
So, how can I inspect your email domain reputation? Could be your next question.
Well, start by monitoring your domain’s sender score. You can use tools like SenderScore.org or SenderBase to check this score. Additionally, you should keep an eye on your domain’s email authentication records, including SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. Ensure these records are correctly set up and regularly monitor them for any changes or issues. Cold email tools like SmartReach.io provide free spam tests that could be run on every campaign, it highlights issues and provides fixes.
Crafting a Killer Subject Line
The subject line is your email’s first impression. Srba advises keeping it brief, with a maximum of three words. “Short, simple, and catchy,” he emphasizes. A few studies confirm this approach, showing that emails with personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened. But that’s not all – A/B testing is a must. “You never know what subject line will resonate with your audience, so test them!”.
Once again, your cold email software should provide an option to A/B test email subject lines and email body. If it doesn’t then you must reconsider the tool you use, as this is a very basic feature. SmartRaech provides this with all their plans
Trim Excess Fat From Your Email Body
Your email body carries the conversation forward. “A/B testing isn’t limited to subject lines. It’s equally vital for your email body,” Srba says. He mentions limiting it to 3 sentences (not 3 para’s)
Stats reveal that email campaigns with A/B testing exhibit a 48% higher click-to-open rate. Shorten your email body, aiming for brevity, around three sentences, to be precise. Avoid images, attachments, signatures, and links, and stay away from spammy words – these elements can quickly push your emails to the spam folder, states HubSpot.
Experiment with AI-generated subject lines and email content. By providing input such as email context, word count, user designation, and ideal customer profile details, you can quickly obtain the results that Srba discusses in a matter of seconds.
Domain Diversification is Key
An interesting tip Srba shares is the significance of having multiple domains.
“Over-relying on a single domain for cold emails can damage your domain’s reputation,” he warns. He also urges the audience to avoid using their primary domain for cold emailing. Diversifying your domains helps maintain a good sender reputation, and with 77% of deliverability issues attributed to sender reputation, this strategy becomes crucial.
How do I run domain diversification? Is what you thinking, right?
It’s not simple and not many businesses do this, but if you plan on adding cold emailing as an integral part of your sales playbook then you should consider it. Here are a few steps.
- Start by creating subdomains of your primary domain. For example, if your primary domain is example.com, create subdomains like email.example.com, marketing.example.com, or support.example.com.
- Divide your email streams based on the type of emails you send. Marketing emails, transactional emails, and support emails should each have their own subdomain. This separation helps distinguish between different types of emails and can prevent a negative impact on your primary domain if one of the subdomains faces issues.
- For each subdomain, configure proper authentication records, including SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. These records ensure that your email is recognized and trusted
- When you start sending emails from a new subdomain, begin with a low volume and gradually increase it over time.
- Regularly monitor the deliverability and sender reputation of each subdomain. Use email deliverability tools to keep an eye on your domain’s performance. If you notice any issues, address them promptly.
Cold email software like SmartReach lets you send campaigns from multiple email domains simultaneously. You can set a daily sending limit and also manage ramping up sending for new domains or campaigns.
Role of Personalization In Cold Email Success
Srba emphasizes the importance of personalization. The first email in your sequence, he suggests, should be manually personalized. Investigate the prospect’s LinkedIn profile for any recent updates. Look for commonalities or points of connection.
Personalization yields impressive results, with personalized emails achieving 75% higher click-through rates.
So, now you know that just adding a first name and company name is not enough. While running campaigns at scale you could create custom merge tag columns and run hyper-personalization at scale with Spintax
Soft Call to Action
Rather than a hard pitch in your opening email, Srba recommends a “soft call to action.” Begin by asking for relevancy rather than diving straight into scheduling a demo. The result? A softer approach leads to 7x higher conversion rates
Examples of soft calls to action
- “If this aligns with your goals, let’s explore further.”
- “I’d love to learn more about your challenges in this area.”
- “Let me know if you’d be open to a conversation about this.”
- “I’m available to chat if you want to delve deeper into this topic.”
- “Should you wish to learn more, I’m just an email away.”
So, why does all this matter?
As Srba highlights, email deliverability is no longer a minor concern. More and more cold emails are being ended up in spam, making it essential to address email deliverability strategically within your organization.
Monitor open rates, click rates, and reply rates regularly. While open rates aren’t 100% accurate due to certain email screeners, a high percentage can assure you that your emails are hitting the mark (or inbox).
To sum it all up, email deliverability is a complex topic that should not be ignored or swept under the carpet. However, as Srba’s insights show, it’s not impossible to overcome.
Leveraging best practices and experts’ advice, you can get on top of email deliverability. And remember, there are tools like SmartReach.io with email deliverability in their DNA, offering features like email validations, warm-up, Spintax, and spam tests to ensure your emails reach their intended destinations.
Engage with us!
Have you faced email deliverability challenges? What strategies have worked for you? Share your experiences and tips in the comments below, and let’s continue the conversation. Together, we can ensure our messages reach the right inboxes and drive successful email campaigns.