10% of this “inboxing stuff” is technical. (Authenticating your email, keeping your list clean, and making sure all other settings are correct). The other 90% is all inboxing strategies. (The things you do to get in people’s inboxes and get them opening your emails and interacting with those emails.) 

I’ll start with the technical stuff because wirhout proper authentication nothing else matters. In short, you need to verify the authenticity of the sender’s email address. 

Establish These Three Primary Frameworks: SPF, DKIM, AND DMARC
The objective of these systems is to guarantee and verify the identity of the senders and protect
the receivers from insecure emails.
Sender Policy Framework (SPF): Allows mail services to double check that incoming mail from a specific domain has, in fact, been sent from that domain.
DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM): Shows your email is associated with your domain and uses cryptographic techniques to make sure it should be there.
Domain-Based Message Authentication, Reporting, & Conformance (DMARC): Designed to combat phishing, DMARC gives you insight into the abusive senders that may be impersonating you — and can help you identify them. It allows a sender to indicate that an email is protected by SPF or DKIM. The sender can then receive a report back on any messages that failed the authentication and identify if anyone using the domain could be
a spammer.

If you’re reading this and it all “looks like greek” to you, it just means you have someone who handles your website stuff. It could be your site designer or the person who handles your email lists. Just show them this article and make sure your SPF, DKIM and DMARC are up to date. (to see more technical infomation go to Gmail Update.)

Inboxing Tips:

1. If you get a new email address to use to comply with the new policies make sure you tell your whole email list that you’re switching to your new email address and how to whitelist your email and ensure that they can keep receiving your emails.
Before switching your email, send a message to all of your email lists about the changes coming. In fact, send multiple emails. Not everyone will see the first one and you may even want to offer a bonus to people
who whitelisted you. Make sure you have a plan for this!
2. If you get a new email address:  make sure you warm your list up with this new email before going full in. For example… Try sending a couple of emails that drive a click to a piece of
content. And start with your best engaged lists. So, for example today send 200, tomorrow 400, etc.
3. Ensure your from name is set correctly in your email settings. Emails that come from a REAL name do better than emails that come from a brand that isn’t very well known. You might have a brand, but if it’s not a household name it’s not well known. It’s better to use your name as the from name.
4. Maintain a Clean Mailing List: Regularly update your email list by removing unengaged subscribers and incorrect email addresses. This improves your sender reputation and deliverability.
5. Avoid Spam Trigger Words: Certain words and phrases can trigger spam filters. Avoid using excessive sales language, capital letters, and exclamation marks, especially in the subject line.
6. Optimize Email Content: Keep your email content relevant, engaging, and valuable to your audience. High engagement rates signal to email providers that your content is valued, increasing the chances of landing in the inbox.
7. Include an Unsubscribe Link: Always include an easy-to-find unsubscribe link in your emails. It’s not only a good practice, but it’s also required by laws like CAN￾SPAM and GDPR.
8. Monitor Email Performance: Regularly check your email analytics for open rates, click rates, bounce rates, and unsubscribe rates. This data can help you adjust your strategies for better inbox placement.
9. Test Your Emails: Use tools to test how your email appears in different email clients and to check for any elements that might trigger spam filters. This is important and it’s totally free to do!
10. Segment Your Audience: Send relevant content to segmented groups within your email list. This ensures that subscribers receive content that is most relevant to them, which can improve engagement.
11. Responsive Email Design: Ensure your emails are mobile-friendly. A significant portion of users check their emails on mobile devices. Emails that don’t display correctly on various devices may be ignored or marked as spam. This is why I personally use mainly text based emails.
12. Use a Reputable Email Service Provider (ESP): A good ESP can help manage many aspects of email deliverability, such as handling bounces and managing feedback loops with ISPs.
13. Avoid “No-Reply” in the Sender’s Email Address: Using a “no-reply” sender address can decrease engagement and is often viewed negatively by both recipients and email providers.
14. Encourage Engagement: Ask questions or encourage subscribers to reply to your emails. Replies can positively affect your sender reputation. You MUST get engagement!
15. Properly Format Links: Ensure that any links in your emails are properly formatted and lead to reputable sites. Broken links or links to questionable websites can harm your deliverability.
16. Avoid Excessive Links: Including too many links in your emails can trigger spam filters. Keep the number of links reasonable.
17. Educate Your Subscribers: Tell your subscribers how to whitelist your emails. This can be a simple instruction in the welcome email or a list of instructions on your thank you page.
18. Monitor Your Sender Reputation: There are many tools that can give you insights into your sender reputation, which is crucial for email deliverability. Research these and find the best tool for you!

Here’s one I have used: https://senderscore.org

Mom, are you there . . . ?

In conclusion, this may seem like a lot of information, so if you’re concerned about whether your emails will get delivered, ask this simple question, “Would I send this email to my mother?”
Would you send her an email with a Subject Line that was ALL CAPS? An email with almost no text, but full of pics and links to products for sale? How about an email that had ZERO valuable content? Simple Rule of Thumb, if you wouldn’t send this kind of email to your own Mother – you shouldn’t send it to your clients!

PS: If you want to see how I send StoryMails, that get opened, get read and get acted upon, go to StoryMails. 

.