When it comes right down to it, delivery is the most important aspect of your email campaign. We work with email deployment providers that have strong reputations and are committed to ensuring your email message gets delivered. In addition to their anti-spam procedures and authentication protocols, we help by keeping your list clean and your subscribers well informed.

We take email delivery very seriously and work only with respected deployment providers that have tough anti-spam policies and consistently high delivery rates. We take additional steps to improve delivery rates, open rates and response to your email campaigns.

Treating your subscribers with respect to ensure they have given permission (opted in to your list) is the critical first step in an effective email campaign. You don't want to send mail to your subscribers too often or with messages that they don’t want. We recommend setting their expectations when they sign up for the list: "Here's what you can expect to receive from us and how often." If you send messages sporadically, every couple of months or twice a year for example, your response will suffer as you lose touch with your audience and your opt outs (recipients that unsubscribe) will increase.

Proofs and Approvals
Before any email is distributed, we will send a sample proof message to you for approval. Our service includes two sets of proofs and any necessary amendments or corrections. This is typically more than sufficient to refine the message for your audience and ensure accuracy.

Testing
When your message is ready, we take additional steps to test it to make sure anti-spam junk mail filters don’t trash it. We also preview your message on different computer operating systems and email programs. Subject lines are carefully written to avoid being mistaken for Spam and to entice the recipient to open the message. When everything checks out, we’ll schedule the deployment of your message.

Deployment
Mondays and Tuesdays are good days for higher open rates and click-through rates (the number of links in the message that are clicked, compared to the number of emails that have been opened). Fridays can be good, too, especially if you are open for business on the weekend. Morning is the best time to hit the in box. We’ll suggest a schedule based on your objectives, message and audience.

The resulting activity is usually very steep for the first day then levels off after three days. Response is immediate.

Reporting
With an HTML email structure, we can see how many emails were delivered, opened and even what links were clicked on. For example, we might include a link to a coupon that recipients can apply to their next service, or pass along to a friend or associate. The report we provide on each email distribution will detail the activity and guide future efforts. We’ll send a report within two weeks of your email deployment.

How often should emails be sent?

The answer depends on how often you have information that your subscribers will want to read. If you send them messages that have little value, your readers will start automatically deleting them, unsubscribe or worse, file a spam complaint. A good rule of thumb is a consistent schedule of once a month. Sending more frequently is fine if you have highly relevant, timely information to share. Otherwise you will just annoy your readers. Less frequent emails run the risk of higher bounce rates (undeliverable due to email addresses that are no longer valid) or poor open rates because subscribers have lost interest or forgotten they subscribed in the first place. Regularly scheduled messages are the key to improving readership and response.

Also, we keep your list up to date. Subscribers who have opted out will no longer receive your emails. You definitely don’t want to irritate your customers by sending emails they don’t want.