Despite the omnipresent buzz these days about Social Media Marketing, good old fashioned email marketing continues to be a staple for most B2B Marketers.  In fact, according to a recent poll by BtoB Magazone, it’s one of the most prominent channels among the B2B marketing mix, as illustrated by this chart:

One of the big challenges these days is the increasing difficulty of getting the email into the prospect’s inbox.  According to an Aberdeen group survey if major ISPs, as much as 90% of email sent today consists of SPAM.  As a result, ISPs need to filter out much of this junk before it gets anywhere near an inbox.

As companies use multiple tiers of SPAM filtering, some of these emails may not even be visible to the end user even in their “junk” box because it is filtered out further up in the chain.

Here are 5 key tactics that B2B Marketers can use to increase sales eads by improving email deliverability:

1. Clean Content.  Avoid using spammy words in subject lines or email bodies (words such as “free” may trigger spam filters.  Many email marketing systems have tools to analyze content for potential spam flags.
2. Dedicated IP Address.  Make sure you’re on a dedicated IP address – if you have a shared IP, other companies using the same IP may be polluting it
3. List Hygiene.  Remove hard bounces from your list – continuing to send emails to dead email addresses makes you look like a spammer.
4. DKIM & SPF Records.  Make sure you have Domain Keys and SPF Records set up in your email system (if you don’t know what these are, get help from the provider of your email system). These confirm your identity, and if you have a reputation for sending good email (not SPAM), they will benefit you.
5. Target Your Emails.  Recipients of email are notorious for hitting the “SPAM” button on email if they think it does not apply to them – even if it is not spam.  By making your emails more relevant and targeted, you reduce this from happening and improve your reputation, which ISPs use to determine whether to let your emails through or not.

Let’s talk a bit more about “Targeting,” because this is not just about increasing deliverability, it’s also about increasing the Quality of your Sales Leads and about getting the most ROI out of your email marketing.

Better targeting makes your message more relevant to the recipient, improves open rates, improves your email reputation, and produces higher quality leads – just what every marketer and every sales team wants!

Tags: Digital Marketing, Email Marketing, Sales Prospecting