“Spam”. Perhaps it’s the most hated word on email marketing. But you can’t really escape from it. It’s an integral part, and it is as old as email marketing itself.
Technology alone isn’t enough. No email marketing companies that can assure you 100% spam free delivery. It would be best if you took matters with your own hand. You need strategies.
Gmail Inbox Strategies (GIS) is a set of rules to make your email goes into the Primary Inbox, not just to avoiding SPAM. And because more than 70% of world email addresses are Gmail, it will make your email deliverability better than other ESP.
Before you know about Gmail Inbox Strategy, first you need to understand Tab or Folder on Gmail.
Tab or Folder on Gmail.
Primary
Primary or also known as the main folder. Every email that is delivered to the primary will get a notification. Every incoming email on primary is usually sent from friends or “human beings.”
Social
The email that goes to Social usually comes from social media, and it automatically sends from Facebook, Twitter, etc.
Promotions
The promotions tab contains emails from the online shop, affiliate marketer, or another salesperson. The email contains about product promotion. This is where you usually are.
Updates
The email that goes to Updates is automatic emails of the services you use. It looks like a promotion but not overtly.
There are some reasons why the incoming email should go to Primary Inbox. Some of them are incoming email in Primary inbox has its notification, the receiver will believe that the email is credible, and so on.
NOTE:
However, you should know that practicing every step here doesn’t guarantee that your email will go to the Primary Inbox. Also, it doesn’t guarantee that emails will stay there.
That also means, NOT following every step or rule here does not guarantee that your emails will go to the SPAM or Promotion tab.
These strategies will increase the higher probability that your email will go to Primary Inbox.
The next thing you should know that Google creates Gmail to make its user is comfortable receiving email, not for your promotional email to come into the Primary.
In the end, everything depends on your relationship with your lists. Gmail will follow the good relationship human to human. Interestingly, Gmail will obedient if the account’s owner said it is not a SPAM.
Now, let’s get it on.
Gmail Inbox Strategies
G.I.S #1: Educate your list to move your email to the Primary folder.
You can make or write a tutorial to move your email from any folder to the Primary folder. This will encourage your customers to move the email manually. Or you can make a tutorial to tell your applicant how to get your email out from SPAM.
There are two ways to move your email to the Primary folder.
- Drag and drop
- Right-click on the email you want to move
You can see our whitelist page as an example; go to http://en.kirim.email/whitelist to see it.
You can put the tutorial on your “thank you” page. You can later redirect your forms to that thank you page.
G.I.S #2: If email eventually goes to SPAM, tell your subscribers to mark it as “NOT SPAM.”
Marking an email as “NOT SPAM” is the best Anti-SPAM method. Period.
Here’s how to do it:
1. Open the SPAM folder inside your email.
2. Click on the email that you want to mark as not spam.
3. Then you can see at the top of the email body, there is a sign “REPORT NOT SPAM” or the button “NOT SPAM.” Click one of them.
4. The email will move to the other folder. You can ask your subscriber to drag it to Primary Folder if you want to.
G.I.S #3: Quality of the email address domain.
The email with its own domain has higher acceptance than Gmail. For example, jono@hijabgaul.com.
Using your own domain will better than free sender emails like Gmail and Yahoo! for promotion. However, Gmail also looks at the sender domain reputation. Is there a website? How long has the domain been? Is there SSL? Etc.
A domain that is only used for delivery, but doesn’t have a website or landing page, will not have a good reputation. You can create a landing page with your domain at KIRIM.EMAIL.
Read the details in here.
Firstly, you need to have a domain. After you have a domain, the next step is to prove to Google that the domain is yours.
How? We’ve covered you. Please follow the guide here
G.I.S #4: Avoid writing Email that has SPAM characteristics.
You can use these basic rules:
- Avoid email subjects containing SPAM words, such as BUY, $$$, SELL, etc.
- DO NOT USE ALL CAPITAL LETTERS LIKE THIS!
- Don’t use too many punctuations marks close together like this!!!!!
- The number of texts in the email should not be too small.
G.I.S #5: Avoid content duplication.
The principle is the same as SEO; the same email sent multiple times could make Gmail reduce your sending reputation.
KIRIM.EMAIL has a resend to unopened feature; the goal is to follow up with those who have not opened the email and NOT for duplicating content continuously.
So, write a fresh new email as much as possible.
G.I.S #6: Give attention to the link.
Gmail has its own bots that will check all your email. Where is it going? Is the link active? How many redirects? Is the website has useful content or not?
Ideally, an email should contain a link pointing to the same page, although it can be repeated several times.
Also, make sure your link has the same domain that you use as the email sender. It’s the reason many email marketing providers banned affiliate links.
If your email contains lots of links, check all the links. Use the send email preview feature on KIRIM.EMAIL.
G.I.S #7: Do not automate too much.
The best emails are sent manually, and don’t use an Autoresponder too much. In my opinion, use Autoresponder a maximum of three times a day. After that, send it manually. Take it as an investment. It will take your time but can make the engagement higher.
G.I.S #8: Write your email like sending to one person.
Emails aimed at one person tend to have higher engagement rates, and in the end, it will affect the delivery rate.
You can imagine that you will send an email to your friends. Start your email with say hello, ask her/his day, say her/his name, and end your email with your wish to them as “Have a good day,” “Wish you have a better day,” and so on.
G.I.S #9: Quality HTML email structure.
Like web pages, in most cases, your sending email is now in HTML format.
Even if you send a text-only email, some email marketing services such as KIRIM.EMAIL will convert it to basic HTML when sent to Gmail.
Gmail will look at your email’s HTML structure as part of its algorithm of how good your email is.
If you didn’t know how HTML email works, worry not, you could use the email builder at KIRIM.EMAIL to create emails with a good HTML structure, and don’t change them manually unless you understand.
You can learn about KIRIM.EMAIL’s email builder here
G.I.S #10: Remind your subscribers to write the right email address.
Your subscribers will write the wrong email address. The most frequently are Gnail.com, Gmail.con, or Gmall.com.
So, remind them on your landing page or form to recheck their email address.
The wrong email will not go to SPAM, but also will not go anywhere.
G.I.S #11: Send useful content
Many people only send promotional content, but they get angry when the email lands on the promotional tab. It’s a promotional email; what do they expect?
Send useful content frequently alongside your promotion or hard selling emails. Tell your subscribers about some great articles that you found this week. Hacker Newsletter did it for a long time, and people love it.
Send them your stories, behind the scenes of your previous product launch, or your most engaging post on Instagram, etc. Get creative.
Send useful emails and interact both ways with your customers.
G.I.S #12: Write your physical (office) address in the email.
Google recommends that you put a physical address in every email you send. Especially on the footer part.
At KIRIM.EMAIL and some other services, you must enter a physical address when registering or creating a list. It will appear automatically in every email.
G.I.S #13: List Maintenance.
Every email address has an expiration date. Email addresses may be left behind, deleted, not used anymore; the owner changed jobs, etc.
Therefore, the number of your subscriber will be very dynamic. KIRIM.EMAIL already has an automated system for deleting inactive emails, email addresses that never interact, and other zombie emails.
Learn about email bounces and Zombie Emails here
Bottom line: Someone who unsubscribes is better than having their email off your list and becoming a zombie.
G.I.S #14: Use Magic Opt-in.
When creating a form, almost everyone in the email marketing world (including us) will suggest using the double opt-in, so that prospective subscribers must confirm their email first before receiving any of your emails.
But double opt-in is still a hassle. Hence KIRIM.EMAIL came up with a better solution; we called it: Magic Opt-in.
With Magic Opt-in, you can make any link to become to be the confirmation link.
For more details about magic opt-in, please go here
G.I.S #15: Send email frequently.
The frequency of email you sends each month will affect your sending rate. It is okay to send emails regularly even if your list is still small.
Build the habit of writing emails daily; it will make you a better writer and a better person.
The frequency of email you sends each month will affect your sending rate. It is okay to send emails regularly even if your list is still a little.
G.I.S #16: Ensure everyone on your list permits you to send emails.
It’s the oldest rule in the book.
Don’t carelessly import email without permission. On the other side, here the list of emails that you can send:
- Which is filled directly by prospective customers
- The one written on the business card
- Your customers
- Your seminar attendees
- Blog subscribers
- People who gave the e-mails of their own accord
Remember, almost all email marketing services will ban your account for owning an illegal or unauthorized email list.
G.I.S #17: Interaction is the main thing.
Interaction here means to open an email, click on the link, reply email, email reading duration, and where the e-mail is directed.
If you put an interesting subject, your email will be opened by the sender. Then the link will be clicked if there is CTA (Call to Action).
You can attract your recipients to reply to email for interaction. For example, you can write, “Do you have any questions? Feel free to reply to this email.”
Email reading duration here means how much your subscriber spent reading your email and how far someone scrolled through your email. It is greatly influenced by your ability to write or create content. Do not only use text; use other features such as picture, video preview, GIF, etc. Use a great picture with good resolution.
To make your email more attractive, you can use email builder. Learn about it here
G.I.S #18: Educate your subscribers to open your emails.
From the start, “educate” the email receiver to open your email. You can make them open it by writing; for example, “Webinar link will be sent by email” or “You can download e-book through email.”
Consider using an email course before the e-book. The email course is a course through email that is sent regularly every day. Think of it as the chapter on your ebook; only it’s on email. So it’s a chapter for an email.
G.I.S #19: Email control.
Use email control to test and evaluate your email. This method will not give 100% accuracy, but you will get an overview of where your email is going.
Here are the steps to test with email control:
- Create 4 or 5 Gmail addresses.
- Put all of the emails to the list that you want to test.
- Broadcast email as usual. Don’t use the test send feature.
- Check all the email addresses, see where your email is. Is it in spam? Promotion? Or the primary inbox?
The keys to successful email control are: You MUST NOT open the email. Once you open it, you have to create a new email address again to replace it.
This way, you can see what Gmail thinks of your email. Without any interaction from you. It only uses its algorithm to put your email where it thinks it belongs.
G.I.S #20: Some for all.
Gmail will always change where your email is. To do that, Gmail DOES NOT list all email addresses that receive your email. Gmail only take a sample as much as X to determine whether your email deserves to leave the spam folder or not.
No one knows how much the exact number is. However, from our experience, if a group of people regularly interacts with our email, the impact of the sending will be felt throughout your list.
Download G.I.S Checklist
What’s your strategy?
Do you have a strategy or two to share with us?
Again, everything here doesn’t guarantee where your email goes. Gmail will continue to change its algorithm. The most important is to stay focused on writing for people, not for Gmail.
Sometimes a good email will still get read even if it goes into the promotion or spam folder. In some cases, the recipient of your email will notify you if your email goes to spam.
Gmail will continue to look for ways so that it can’t be “tricked” in anyways. That also means get tricked with these strategies.
-Fikry
