Every agency sends emails in an effort to enhance client acquisition and grow their business. In reality, although the concept of sending emails to attract and retain clients seems promising, it is almost inevitable that your email may end up in the spam folder.

Why is this a growing problem?

Agencies may follow the rules on sending emails, but society has taken marketing efforts to an entirely different level. There are tons of emails sent every day, putting them all into the same category. In addition, ISP providers are continuously finding new ways to keep legitimate emails from reaching their destination because of simple mistakes agencies may make. There are ways to avoid going into the spam folder, but doing the due diligence is key.

To help combat this growing problem, we’ve organized 5 tips to help you avoid the spam folder, and increase overall deliverability:

1. Watch your jargon

Knowing what to say and when to say it plays an important role in how the email is viewed once it hits the sender’s box. If there are links in the email, make sure they are from reputable sites. Keep the image-to-text ratio reasonable, and make sure you use a reputable host for any images you may have in the email. Do not use risky words such as free, bonus, buy, purchase, order, prize, or use more than one exclamation point. This will keep the flags down, especially in subject lines.

2. Use Reputable URL Links

Spam filters check for the URLs you are linking to so ensuring the domain name has a good reputation is important. Avoid names that have multiple folders and 1-2 characters in their file name. For example, a domain name with www.domain.com/a/everything.html will often be picked up as spam and seen as a negative URL. In addition, keeping the complete URL in the file name, and not shortened links, will improve email delivery.

3. Certification

If you are a legitimate agency, getting certified will help you gain credibility. Also, using platforms like Return Path will guarantee your inbox is known from the major ISPs, which will help you avoid being flagged as spam.

4. Be honest

Avoid emails that come from different mailboxes. You want to be consistent to help build the credibility of your agency, and stay recognizable. When customers are familiar with your email addresses, they will take you out of the spam folder and automatically direct you to their inbox.

5. Provide relevant content to the right audience

The best way to see engagement from your email marketing, and not get pinged as spam, is to provide timely and relevant content to the right audience. First thing – make sure you’re messaging is going to the appropriate decision-makers. Successful agencies are now leveraging list building tools to help supplement their organic opt-in list. Purchasing targeted prospect lists through reputable sources (like Winmo) can immediately increase not only traffic to your site, but also disseminate your expertise to a larger group of potential buyers. It also confirms the content you’re creating is being sent to the industries and titles that you’re best fit to win business from.

Not surprising – the next step is create custom content that uniquely speaks to each of these targeted audiences. Do your research to understand the personas of each vertical and then develop compelling content around each of their pain points.

Now in its 20^th year, Mary Meeker’s Internet Report continues to be a virtual gold mine of actionable intelligence for digital marketers.

As a VC and former Wall Street analyst, Meeker has become a leading authority on consumer research and global economic patterns. Her yearly report offers the kind of insight that makes global campaigns successful, and puts ad agencies in the position to generate new business opportunities with multi-national corporations.

With that, here are the key takeaways for digital marketers from Mary Meeker’s 2015 Internet Report.

There are currently 2.8B internet users around the world, accounting for 39% of the population. 

Takeaway: If you work with any globally relevant companies, especially those with key demographics in Asia, be sure that you are reaching high-usage audiences with digital marketing efforts. It’s an added bonus if you build an effective campaign that drives results and use it as sales collateral to bring in leads from other global brands. 

Internet users have more control over content – and content discovery channels – than ever before. 

Takeaway: To really move the needle with content marketing, your content promotion and social media strategies have to be on point if you are going to attract and engage different audience segments. Also, don’t be afraid to continuously showcase high performing evergreen content.

Advertising dollars are being used to create interactive experiences on social media and messaging apps like WhatsApp, LINE and Snapchat.  

 

Takeaway: Marketers who capitalize on this now will have an advantage in the U.S. market. This kind of forward-thinking strategy is beneficial for client retention, pitching new clients and attracting new business. We recommend focusing on messaging apps since six of the top 10 most used apps fell in this category. 

User-generated content and content aggregation platforms continue to grow in popularity. 

Takeaway: Strategies that consistently focus on user-generated content through reviews and social media channels will increase the effectiveness of brand awareness efforts and build authority/trust with target audiences.

Visual content is the most effective way to reach millennials, especially when it is optimized for mobile usage.    

Takeaway: As millennials continue to shape new advertising trends, effective marketing strategies will be defined by their adaptability and agility.   

If your agency can successfully integrate even just one of the strategies mentioned above, it will serve you well. Your clients will see dramatic results. And better yet, you will have a guaranteed value proposition with supporting material to use for pitching, prospecting and lead generation.