As we have discussed in other "How to Tuesday" articles in the past weeks and months, Email marketing is still going strong to date, but with countless daily emails being sent within the International Education industry, it is a struggle to ensure that your email not only avoids the spam folder, but is actually read. Follow these steps on how to ensure email deliverability.

1. Always check for Spam Triggers

Think outside the box, make sure your subject line and body are different from what other companies are saying and using. Avoid any triggering keywords; to help make this easier there are a lot of email service providers out there that have features that help you identify these phrases.

2. Clean out Hard Bounced emails

Always keep track of your email insights and clean out those hard bounced emails as these can really hurt your reputation; hard bounced refers to all those emails that have been undelivered for a permanent reason. Cleaning out your list regularly also gives your marketing campaign a more accurate insight on the viewed, read and clicked percentage.

3. Increase Engagement Levels

Like any other marketing platform, email marketing requires a level of engagement with your customers and correspondents. Mail clients have started tying the engagement levels of your subscribers to your reputation as a sender. Check if your subscribers are clicking on your email, see what’s working and what isn’t; being considered reputable through engagement in the eyes of Gmail, Yahoo etc is a big plus.

4. Set Expectations

Always greet new subscribers; send them a welcome email, let them know what your newsletters are all about and how often they will be getting news from you. Having subscribers aware of what to expect will help build a longer lasting relationship.

5. Use Branding

Branding is essential in any marketing campaign; when it comes to email marketing, your branding presence assures the reader that the email is legit. Include your logo and make it clear that the email is really coming from you and not some third party.

6. Use a preference centre

Make your unsubscribe process as easy as possible, otherwise you may end up causing more conflict than needed. You could also go that extra mile and show your customers how much you respect them and their preferences by adding a preference page; where your customer can unsubscribe but can also change how frequently they wish to receive emails from you.

7. Track Feedback

Keep track of the insight for each mailshot you send, not only the hard bounces and soft bounces; but more importantly take note of those who have marked your email as spam. Unsubscribe those users who do so, and if there are a lot of them, you might need to reconsider how visible your unsubscribe link is. Having people unsubscribe is always better than being labelled as spam.

Email Marketing campaigns are an effective lead and sale generator, however with today’s high demands, huge traffic and filtering it has become easier for your mailshots to be sent to spam. However, if you do go through these steps, you are sure to increase the deliverability of your email campaign.