The Only Real Email Deliverability Sure Thing

If you ever looked at the hundred of spam messages that get caught in your email filter, a common reaction you might have to the ploys these marketers are trying is "They must think I am stupid." What is particularly amazing is how hard email mass merchandisers (spam artists) go to great lengths to overcome spam filter methods to get their email into your email box but how little effort they invest in to not get deleted once they get there.

I was watching spam one day and I noticed a couple tricks that the marketers were trying to use. One was to include long strings of unrelated words on the theory that some of those phrases will draw the customers attention so you will open the email. But in the process the email was gibberish and it was immediately deleted so all that hard work was for nothing. Another ploy was to use a image of the message so that it could not be scanned for flag words that would be caught by a spam filter. It didn't make the promotion any more appealing even if it did get to my email box and it got deleted.

The reason none of those emails ever work is that those marketers have no reputation with me. And that one word "reputation" is at the heart of how to overcome the deliverability problem and assure that a greater percentage of your emails gets all the way to your customers. To make sure that happens, you have to build trust with the customer. You have to build relationship so when they see your email come in, they want to read it. That takes work and it takes ongoing effort not only to build relationship with those customers but to maintain it. But it is the only real email delivery sure thing that will work every time. A good email reputation means more delivered emails and more sales. And when that reputation is hurt, so are your sales.

Have you noticed how often when you sign up to use an online service, they boldly display a guarantee that your email will not be used for promotional purposes or sold. There is one reason they are doing that. That company wants to build trust with you so if they contact you, you will trust their email and so you will continue to give them your private information for an ongoing online commerce relationship. That "friendship" between customer and merchant is pure gold to any online business and that is the kind of relationships you must build with your customers to make email deliverability issues become a thing of the past.

Any study of the real experts who are trying to solve the email deliverability problem will focus on this one issue - email reputation, trust and authentication. Internet customers take it seriously because to have access to their real email box, you have to deserve it. And to deserve the right to sell to a customer, you have to establish trust. They have to trust you that you are "for real" and not an internet scam. They have to trust you that you will offer them value both in the product or service that is your business but even in the email you send to them regularly. And they have to trust you that you won't betray their trust by spamming them or giving them over to spam operators who will trod on that trusted relationship to try to get a cheap sale.

You probably remember as a youngster your father telling you that trust is not something you can ask for. It is something that is earned. But you don't just earn it once, you continue to earn it over and over again every day. That is what you must make your corporate ethic when dealing with the customers you sell to online. Treat them with respect and earn their trust. And if you do that, they will reward your respect with internet traffic on your web site and with sales. And that is how to prosper in an online world.