Like thousands of brands, you want to communicate to your customers and subscribers about the continuity of your services or products during the COVID-19 crisis. Understandably, you may no longer be able to rely on other sales channels, so you turn to digital channels. And what digital channel do we know works? Email.
In this sensitive period of overuse of the internet (to the point of slowing it down significantly), it is necessary to have a use that is both respectful of your consumers’ consent and of the trust granted by your subscribers, but also an acute awareness of the impact that the volume of your campaigns can have on the general congestion of online applications such as email messaging.
If you’ve answered yes to the questions in Cheetah Digital’s previous article, then you are ready to send your campaign.
Before taking any action, remember that technically, although email is PUSH technology, sending an email message, especially if it is sent en mass, does not guarantee that it reaches all recipients efficiently and quickly. This is the notion of deliverability!
However, to deliver your messages (that is to say, to have the emails arrive in the recipient’s inbox), you must, above all, respect good practices. But it is of course also necessary to refrain from following the bad ones, so to avoid that, Cheetah Digital have made a list of the five biggest errors you should avoid in the coming days.
Sending every message to everyone
Sending to all of your subscribers regardless of their engagement with your brand is not a good practice. This sometimes permanently tarnishes the reputation of a sender, to the point of triggering massive spam filtering, even blockages and the rejection of your future sendings.
And especially right now, this would be very damaging for your brand.
Many of your recipients have less time and attention to devote to your messages, which is why the general engagement is therefore likely to decline as is sender reputation.
Starting a reactivation campaign
Just like with a full subscriber list, mass mailings to inactive contacts generally drive hard bounces and recycled spam traps. Say goodbye to the good reputation that you have spent time building over the years!
Today (even more than yesterday) is not the right time to clean up your bases. Segment, target active contacts only, and if necessary scatter your sending throughout the day. Also, take the opportunity to A/B test your sending time by testing different hours of the day or even different days of the week.
Launching a new cadence
The notion of consistency is very important. If your sending habits are suddenly turned upside down (especially your volume of messages sent and your frequency of sending), your messages are highly likely to be filtered as spam. This is already considered as a spammy behaviour in normal times, so imagine when everyone is doing it at the same time.
Put the words “coronavirus” and “COVID-19” in the content of your messages
It has already appeared that some ISPs have started to filter messages which not only include these words in their subject lines but which also generate (too) many spam complaints. Ditto if the expressions in question are repeated too regularly in the body of the message. Show talent in writing your content and find ways to paraphrase.
Stand out! Advanced content filters (known as Bayes filters) react to content and are now very effective in their fight against unsolicited content. Don’t fall into the easy trap. Focus on the services you maintain, no need to develop the well-known reason that pushes us all to see our life turned upside down (and not just our consumer life).