How many times have you opened your spam folder this week?

Thrice? Twice? Oh. Not even once.

That’s what we thought.

And that is why you can’t afford to have your emails in the spam folder. You want your emails to land in the primary inbox, not the spam folder, because only then does it stand a chance to be opened. How do you do this? By boosting your email deliverability.

 

Email Delivery vs. Email Deliverability

Email delivery and email deliverability are not one and the same.

Email delivery describes whether or not your email is delivered. That is, is the target email address valid? Once an email does not bounce, it counts as delivered regardless of what folder it lands in your recipient’s mailbox.

Email deliverability, on the other hand, refers to the inbox placement of your email. Where does the sent email land in the recipient’s mailbox? Does it go into spam or the inbox?

Email delivery is often dependent on the recipient or subscriber. After all, what can you do if a subscriber provides an invalid address?

Email deliverability, however, rests on your shoulders as a K12 marketer. Your authentication, domain setup, email content, and formatting all play a role in email deliverability.

 

Optimal Email Deliverability Rate

As a K12 marketer, you should target an email deliverability rate of at least 95%. The higher your deliverability rate, the better your chances of getting your prospects to read the email and take the action you want them to.

If you have an email deliverability rate lower than 95%, something is wrong. You may be targeting the wrong audience or sending unoptimized emails.

 

Boosting Your Email Deliverability

Here are a few tips to help you boost your email deliverability.

 

Let Go of the Archaic Mailing Lists

Audit your mailing list. An effective email marketing strategy delivered to old and inactive email addresses will do your business no good. If you keep sending emails to old mailing lists, you risk a high bounce rate and multiple spam reports. When your emails are continually reported as spam, your sending address will be flagged, and so will your domain. Consequently, your emails land in the spam folder, slimming the chances of them ever getting opened, and the vicious cycle continues.

So, audit your mailing list. K12 Prospects offers you up-to-date email addresses and allows you to get a customized mailing list that serves your business.

 

Meet Your Customers’ Expectations

If someone subscribed to your business emails as a K12 marketer, it means they are interested in your products and/or services and are probably looking to learn more about your offer and/or services. Don’t mistake this for an absolute interest in you or your brand.

Streamline your email content to focus on your subscribers’ needs. If your mailing list subscribed in the hopes of receiving updates on your latest laptop models, and you then send them an email about collegiate sports applications, your subscribers will most likely ignore your emails. Or worse, they could be marked as spam or go ahead and unsubscribe—not pleasant.

Your subscribers should know exactly what to expect from you and have their expectations met. A subscriber is more likely to open an email when it’s on a topic of interest, and they know what to expect.

 

Slow Down on the Attachments

Avoid attaching PDFs to your email; spam filters don’t like them, and neither should you. Attaching a pdf is seldom a good idea. Over the years, spammers have used PDF files to sneak across unwanted macros to unsuspecting individuals. More so, PDFs are more likely to carry viruses. So, spam filters are extra beware of emails with pdf attachments. In fact, it looks like extra effort is made to flag them.

So, rather than attaching a pdf document, encourage your subscribers to see the information on your website or social media platforms. Alternatively, you can pass across the needed information in the mail itself.

 

Address Spam Complaints

ISPs use Email Feedback Loops (FBLs). That way, you’re informed of spam complaints from your subscribers. When you get these notifications, it’s best to address the issue, not overlook it. With each spam report comes the risk of an Internet Service Provider assigning your brand a lower sender reputation. And, the lower your sender reputation, the more likely it is for your emails to end up in the spam folder. So, format your emails properly and adopt the tips listed above as soon as you receive the first set of spam complaints.

 

Start with the right mailing list

Your subscribers must be people who are truly your target audience and are interested in or need your services. We understand that compiling rich mailing lists as a K12 marketer could be a bit difficult. So, we do it for you. All you have to do is define your K12 Prospects and download the list in a minute. You’re set to have your emails delivered to the inbox of those who really want to hear from and buy from you.

 

Have you ever tried sending someone an email, and the person reports that they never found it? You should have, at least on one or two occasions. When that happens, you could have either resent the email or asked them to check their spam or junk folder. There is always a good chance that they would find it in this folder if you are sure you sent it to the right address.

The question now is: how did it end up there?

If you look at your spam folder, you should find a series of emails there – these are emails you thought should have been in your inbox. And the thing is that every email you send should end up in a deliverability folder after they are delivered. But if they don’t, you should learn how to find email deliverability and improve it. In this guide, we’ll show you how to do this using K12Prospects.

 

What Is the Difference Between Email Deliverability and Email Delivery?

Generally, people confuse email deliverability with email delivery because they sound almost the same. Surprisingly, they are not. They are two different concepts of email communication. See below for Email Deliverability vs. Email Delivery.

 

What is Email Deliverability?

Email Deliverability is also called Inbox Placement. It involves the placement or location of an email after being delivered. It is marked by two different rates – the low and the high. If it is a high rate, the email ended up directly in a receiver’s inbox. However, if it is a low rate, it ended up in a spam folder.

What is Email Delivery?

Email delivery is the acceptance of an email by a recipient’s server. It is the least concerned about the location of storage, i.e., inbox or spam folder. As long as the email has left a sender’s server and delivered to the other side, the email delivery status is active.

 

Why Is Email Deliverability Essential?

You may wonder how email deliverability is important in business. First, some companies spend a huge budget on marketing; the last thing they want is a futile effort. They want to communicate with consumers (including potential ones) successfully using various channels at their disposal, particularly emails. And in turn, they hope to make good sales or have a massive return on investment.

Email deliverability makes this possible, especially where email marketing is the order of the day. You want your emails to land directly in a recipient’s inbox instead of a spam folder where it is least considered. When that happens, you are sure they have received it, and the message has been passed across successfully.

In fact, you won’t have to worry about consumers pressing the delete button because they won’t but read the email in their inbox. And by doing this, you could reach your consumers and finally have a good shot at better sales or improving your image as a brand.

 

What Is Email Deliverability Rate and Bounce Rate?

As you understand email deliverability, you should also do for deliverability and bounce rates. You have a good deliverability rate when it is 95%. It automatically means that consumers received all your messages in their inbox.

On the other hand, there is also the bounce rate. It is a percentage measurement of the number of emails rejected by a recipient’s server. And as these emails keep getting rejected, it affects your deliverability rate. Ultimately, a sender’s rep is put at stake.

Generally, there are two bounce rate types:

 

•   Soft Bounce: If a recipient’s server rejects the email due to temporary problems such as full inbox or server downtime. It has the least effect on a sender’s rep.
•   Hard Bounce: If a recipient’s server rejects the email due to permanent issues. It has the most effect on a sender’s rep.

 

How to Improve Email Deliverability Rate?

Now that you understand the impact of email deliverability rate, you can improve it by doing the following.

• Inbox Placement Testing: It finds out whether an email has been delivered and the location where it is saved on a recipient’s server.
• Blocklist Monitoring: It helps you discover whether or not your domain or IP address ended up in a blocklist on a consumer’s server. Your emails end up on a blocklist if they are flagged as spam.
• Spam Filters: It sorts out emails by providing spam scores and feedback. You can use this information to improve the quality or content of your email so that it doesn’t end up in a spam folder.  
• DMARC Monitoring: It checks whether sent emails from a domain are legit or not. In short, it identifies the authenticity of an email.

 

How to Identify Your Email Deliverability Rate?

To identify your email deliverability rate,

• Calculate: first, calculate by dividing the number of accepted emails by the number of sent emails. You should get your inbox rate value doing this.
• Other things to do: you could also check out your domain or IP address reputation to see if you have a good deliverability rate or not. There are online websites to do that.

 

How Can K12Prospects Be Useful?

To improve your email marketing deliverability, using K12Prospects school data is important. It provides a list of schools and districts personnel that will improve the deliverability rate. Use the most recent data with their unlimited free list updates to generate greater ROIs in the future from email campaigns.