[Email deliverability checklist] Make sure people read your emails
Damaged sender reputation, missed opportunities, or wasted resources?
It’s not bad luck. It’s poor email deliverability.
Which is why we're introducing the finest email deliverability checklist ever created.
The checklist contains every trick in the playbook to maximize deliverability, understand how to do an audit of your email-sending reputation, and make sure your cold emails land on top of anyone's inbox... consistently!
Share it with your colleagues. 🤑
Email reputation audit
◻️ Check if your email has been backlisted.
◻️ Assess the quality of your IP.
◻️ Analyze your current stats to get better insight.
If your open rate is lower than 50% and your reply rate is lower than 5%, you have one of the following issues:
◻️ Check if you've done the technical setup correctly.
◻️ Make sure you're targeting the right audience! Here's why it's essential to build your buyer persona for proper B2B lead generation.
◻️Are you personalizing your cold emails? Get some inspiration from these cold email templates.
Technical configuration
The technical configuration behind your email deliverability is like the engine of your car. You won't make it from A to B without it.
Your technical setup primarily consists of email authentication protocols that make your emails more secure.
Email service providers reward this improved security with better inbox placement, leading to higher open rates for your campaigns.
◻️ Set up your SPF
◻️ Set up your DKIM
◻️ How to set up your DMARC.
◻️ Set up your custom tracking domain.
◻️ Set up your exact profile (no fake names or photos).
Email domain warm-up
Email warm-up is the process of gradually increasing sending volume and frequency to establish a sender reputation for your domain.
If you suddenly start sending hundreds of emails per day, email service providers will think you are a spammer.
When doing email outreach, it’s essential to continue email warm-up even after the initial warm-up stage to keep your sending domain’s reputation in good shape.
◻️ Manually warm up your emails (option 1):
- Week 1: 10 to 20 emails per day
- Week 2: 20 to 40 emails per day
- Week 3: 40 to 80 emails per day
- Week 4: 80 to 100 emails per day
◻️ Automatically warm up your email address (more desired option 2 😎):
Use deliverability and warm-up boosters like lemwarm to get your emails directly into the audience’s inbox.
Deliverability booster runs 100% on autopilot and helps you:
- Avoid the spam folder with a tailored deliverability strategy
- Improve sender reputation with human-like conversations
- Maintain high deliverability with a detailed deliverability report
And to find out more on how to increase your business opportunities by creating lemwarm account, check out how lemwarm improves your deliverability.
Email list quality and hygiene
Having invalid email addresses in your list comes at a high cost for your reputation and deliverability. Luckily, it's easy to ensure this doesn't happen to you.
◻️ Don't buy email lists with unverified email addresses.
◻️ Always send campaigns to professional email addresses of individuals instead of generic email addresses.
The best source of B2B leads is LinkedIn as people tend to regularly update their job position and company. You can get important information about your leads through LinkedIn scraping.
◻️ Use a system that allows you to consistently get verified email addresses from fresh data sources.
Check out --> Target LinkedIn prospects, extract emails and send outbound campaigns automatically
◻️ If you have an existing list and are not sure about the data quality, use lemlist's free email checker.
Send high-quality cold emails
Email providers carefully assess whether or not your prospects engage with the emails you send them. The only way to facilitate engagement and get replies is to focus these emails on your prospects and their needs.
In other words, make them unique and well-structured.
◻️ Don't use complex HTML!
◻️ Don't use fancy signatures - there's no need.
Create a clean-looking and memorable signature with lemlist's free email signature generator.
◻️ Don't add any attachments to your emails. If you need to send a file, just use links (e.g. Google Drive). 😉
◻️ Include images if you'd like - but not too many. Check out more information on how images affect deliverability.
◻️ Don't use spam trigger words and phishing phrases (WIN, free, viagra 😂 etc...).
◻️ Don't use ALL CAPS IN YOUR SUBJECT LINE.
◻️ Always personalize cold emails.
◻️ Use liquid syntax for ultra-personalization (e.g. when you want to automatically change intro lines for different audience verticals).
◻️ Use spin syntax if your lists are larger than 300 people (e.g. where you have 4 different intro lines and they will spin in random order).
◻️ Always email A/B test in order to know what works best for you.
Maintain a good reputation
Avoiding spam filters comes down to ensuring your email reputation stays intact by following the guidelines email providers have provided you with.
◻️ Volume: Do not exceed your email provider's limit. Ideally, keep the number of emails sent between 50 and 200 per sender per day. If you need to deliver more emails, it's best to use multiple senders.
◻️ Consistency: If you didn't send any emails but suddenly start blasting 500 emails every day, you're going to run into trouble. Try to establish a process with consistent daily volumes. When you need to increase it, go step by step.
◻️ Keeping a good ratio: From email sent to email received.
◻️ lemwarm = deliverability booster. Make sure to set up the email warm-up feature within lemlist. It will help you keep a higher ratio from email sent to email received.
◻️ Sending speed: Never send all emails at the same time - use a system allowing you to spread them throughout the day.
◻️ Monitor the following key metrics:
- Open rate needs to be higher than 50%
- Reply rate should be higher than 8%
- Bounce rate needs to be lower than 5%
- Unsubscribe rate needs to be lower than 5%
◻️ Always put an opt-out link!
Bottom line
Never make compromises with email deliverability.
You can have the best cold email template or the most awesome list in the world. You can write a fantastic subject line and have the clearest call to action. Heck, you can have the greatest product ever.
But if people don't see your email, it will all be in vain.
To have the best email templates, fantastic subject lines, and amazing email deliverability, give lemlist a try for free!
