As a B2B brand, it’s essential to share your incredible products and services with companies that would benefit from your services. But finding new customers can feel like an uphill battle.

The good news is that there are plenty of businesses out there, and there’s a cost-effective way to connect with them: cold email.

Say what you will about email marketing, but it remains one of the most effective ways to stay in touch with your current customers and reel in new leads. And with more businesses being available via email, there’s never been a better time to launch a cold email campaign.

What Is B2B Cold Emailing?

Like other forms of cold email, B2B cold emails are a way to reach out to businesses that you’ve never interacted with before. These emails are used to build brand awareness and bring potential customers to the top of your sales funnel.

There are various ways to craft a cold email, but more often than not, these emails will include an offer or talk about an ongoing promotion. But the key to effective cold emailing is to send messages to a relevant audience rather than just sending out email blasts to everyone under the sun.

B2B cold emails may include a general promotion of business, a partnership opportunity, the chance to promote content, a general introduction, or a request for a meeting or call. What you include in your email should be specific to your brand and the brand you’re targeting. But more on that in a bit.

The problem most people have with cold email is the fact that most people (business professionals included) are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of emails they receive in a day. Think about how many emails you delete without even opening them. Throw scam and spam emails into the mix, and it’s hard to imagine that cold email would even make a dent.

Yes, there are a plethora of spammers and scammers out there, but there are steps you can take to stay out of the junk folder and in your recipients’ inboxes. This article has everything you need to start the most successful B2B cold email campaign your company has ever seen.

Why Is B2B Cold Emailing Beneficial?

You might not be completely sold that cold emailing isn’t a lost cause. We get it because we’ve seen this trepidation a lot. We understand how valuable your time is, and we don’t want you to feel like you’re wasting precious work hours.

One of the most significant benefits of cold emailing is that you can create a few killer templates and use them each time you find a potential lead. Think about it-a couple of hours of work for unlimited return on investment.

Don’t believe us? Sumo used five cold email templates to grow their business to a $5 million company. In other words: it can be done.

In fact, approximately 91% of B2B marketers state that email is their most important channel for content marketing success. The beauty of email is that your recipients can open messages on their own time and respond adequately.

Another perk of cold emailing is that it’s incredibly easy to track how effective your campaigns are. Email marketing offers various key performance indicators (KPIs) that you can use to analyze and adjust your strategy.

You can monitor your delivery rate, open rate, click-through rate (CTR), bounce rate, response rate, conversion rate, and more. And multiple systems will track these metrics for you, so you don’t have to rely on spreadsheet accuracy.

How to Create the Perfect Cold Email

Believe it or not, creating the perfect cold email begins way before you start typing up your message.

Identifying the Right Targets

Remember how we said that cold emailing is most effective when you’re not just taking shots in the dark? The first step to creating the perfect cold email is to identify your target audience.

When you built your business, you probably created customer personas for the type of people who would benefit from your products or services. Cold emailing begins with these personas because cold emails need to be specific.

While customer research isn’t the most glamorous component of marketing, it’s arguably one of the more crucial parts. If you see an email in your inbox that doesn’t seem like it’s relevant to you, you’re going to delete it. And if you’re sending out emails to people who think your content is irrelevant to them (no offense), then you’re going to tank your KPIs.

Customer characteristics to consider include:

Like you, these businesses are probably always on the hunt to gain new customers. If your product or service can help this brand gain new customers, then your content is relevant to them.

Once you know the types of businesses you’re looking for, you can begin searching for the relevant points of contact. LinkedIn, HubSpot, and ZoomInfo are all excellent resources for finding the people you should be sending your emails to.

Warm Up Your Inbox

If you’re planning on sending out a higher volume of emails than you usually do on a given day for your cold emailing campaign, you have to make sure your inbox is warm. Inbox or IP warming is a crucial step for cold emailing that most teams forget about, and it can leave a campaign dead in its tracks.

Inbox warming is the process of ramping up the number of emails you send from your account so Internet Service Providers (ISPs) recognize your address.

Why is this important? If you start sending off hundreds of emails a day to people you’ve never contacted before, it sends a major red flag to ISPs. A sudden influx of messages indicates spam, and spam ends up in junk folders. And it’s hard to reach clients when your emails are marked as spam.

Inbox warming slowly but surely increases the number of emails sent from your account each day until you reach the target number of emails you want to send. It’s a tedious process that can take anywhere from six to eight weeks, but it’s a helpful way to increase the chances that your emails will end up where you want them to go.

Thankfully, we live in a world where technology is our friend. Instead of sending out the warming emails yourself, you can use a platform like Warmup Inbox to automate the process. These systems will send out emails on your behalf and generate automatic responses, so ISPs recognize you as a reliable and trustworthy sender.

As you conduct lead research and create your cold email templates, you can let a warming system get your inbox ready for your campaign.

Learn more about Warmup Inbox.

Draft Your Email(s)

Now we get to the fun part: creating emails your recipients will actually read.

Start with a catchy subject line

The first thing a person sees when they get a new email is the subject line. You have a sentence to help them decide whether they want to open the message, so it should be a great sentence.

The important thing with subject lines is to keep it short, sweet, and not spammy. You want it to be intriguing without giving everything away. For example: “Meeting at 3?” is an infinitely more catchy subject than “Are you free to meet at 3pm for a demo?”

At the same time, you don’t want your subject line to be misleading. If someone opens an email because the subject line promised something the body of the message doesn’t follow through on, your email gets deleted. (And worse, you just sent the textbook definition of a spam email.)

Another thing you can do with your subject lines is to make them personal. You can address the recipient by name or say you found them through a shared source. According to Yes Marketing (now Data Axle), recipients are 58% more likely to open an email with a personalized subject line.

Get to the Point

Remember that you’re reaching out to business owners or leaders. They likely don’t have very much free time in their day. The best thing you can do is keep your email on point.

Keeping your email between 75–100 words yields a higher response rate than emails of other lengths. A short email respects your recipients’ time and piques their interest enough to follow through on the call to action.

And since you’re keeping it short, you’ll be able to write in smaller sentences and paragraphs to keep your readers from skimming the content. If they read through every word you’ve written, they’ll feel more compelled to respond or read more.

Keep It Significant and Personalize the Content

Address the reader by their name (not a generic title like “sir,” “ma’am,” or “customer”). Generic emails read like spam, and you want this message to seem like it’s coming from a friend. Quickly speak to their pain points, then demonstrate how you can offer a solution.

Additionally, weaving in opinions or emotions will make your message feel more human. Since you haven’t met this person before in real life, you want your brand’s personality to shine through the screen. Depending on your brand personality, you may want to include relevant images, videos, or GIFs to make your email feel warm.

Include a simple CTA

At the end of your email, you want your recipients to take action. Give them a direct path to the next steps, and they’ll be more likely to follow through.

Don’t fall into the trap of including an excessive number of links or CTAs. Your email is already succinct, and your CTA should be as well. The message should naturally lead into the call to action, whatever it is.

You can ask them to set up a call or guide them to your website-it’s up to you! But you want to open the door for further interaction. After all, cold emailing is all about fostering relationships.

Test, Analyze, and Adjust

Once you have your draft ready to go, it’s time to run some tests before using it on a larger scale. The insights you receive from your tests will guide the adjustments you make so your email stands out from the crowd.

Test everything, including your subject line, body, email design, and call to action. And don’t forget to make sure your message is compatible with mobile browsing, as many people check their emails on the go.

Why Cold Emailing is More Effective than Cold Calling

Some think that cold calling is more effective than cold emailing because you can actually hear the person’s voice on the other end. But cold emailing is actually more effective in the long run.

In the first section, we gave you the statistics about cold email compared to other methods. But since cold calling is one of the more popular forms of outreach to new leads, we want to highlight why emailing is the way to go.

• Easy Accessibility: With cold emails, you don’t have to rely on the users picking up their phones to start conversations. Your message can land in their inbox for them to strike up an interaction on their own time.
• Time Efficient: Cold calling takes a lot of time out of your sales reps’ days. Cold emailing just requires a few personalizations on a template.
• Less Intrusive: Your leads won’t feel annoyed that they’re getting random calls from strangers.
• Easy to Track: If you leave a voice mail, it’s difficult to know if the recipient listens to it unless they call you back. With emails, you can track whether your messages are connected with your audience.
• Brand Awareness: Many people are visual learners, so even if your recipients only skim your email, they’ll still see your logo and business name. This builds brand awareness by helping you stick in their mind if your first attempt at contact doesn’t play out the way you want it to. Who knows? Maybe a few days later, they’ll see your business on LinkedIn and decide to reach out after all.

Originally published at https://blog.warmupinbox.com on December 3, 2021.

Why Is It Important to Track Cold Email Metrics?

Cold emailing is one of the most effective tools in a marketing team’s kit. But for cold emails to be truly effective, they have to be done right. Yes, we know that’s incredibly vague, but stay with us.

You could write the best, most engaging emails in the world and not get the results you want. If you aren’t landing in your recipients’ inboxes, then no one will see your message to begin with. If your subject line doesn’t instantly grab their attention, then they’ll send it right to the trash. Or if you’re sending emails to the wrong people, then they won’t connect with your content.

Tracking email metrics gives you the information you need to make your cold email campaigns effective. Identifying key performance indicators (KPIs) and analyzing the feedback provides a roadmap for how you can make adjustments moving forward.

If it seems like your cold email campaigns haven’t been yielding the results you expected, chances are you aren’t monitoring your metrics to adapt your strategy. It’s like taking shots in the dark and wondering why you aren’t hitting your targets.

Metrics are one of the most significant benefits of using cold emailing over cold calling. Thanks to modern technology, you can automatically generate analytics based on your email campaigns. With cold calling, the only way to know if your calls are effective is if someone picks up the phone.

In this guide, we’ll review five key metrics to consider when developing your cold email strategy:

1. How many emails you send

2. Delivery rate

3. Email open rate

4. Click-through rate (CTR)

5. Reply rates

To be fair, there are numerous other metrics you can use, but for today, we’ll just tackle the basics. Depending on the platform you use and the size of your team, you may want to include more metrics in your strategy. Start with these, then consider adding in a few more.

Metric One: How Many Emails You Send

This one is a bit of a freebie, but it’s important because it establishes your baseline. Every other metric you use will be sized up against the total number of emails you send in a campaign.

How to Determine What Number of Emails Is Sufficient

Before you think, “well, the more emails I send, the greater chance for success I’ll have,” we want to remind you that quality trumps quantity in cold email campaigns.

While it’s easy to believe that sending more emails will yield more results, it’s difficult to send targeted, personalized emails to a general population. And since every other metric hinges on the number of emails you send, if you’re sending messages to the wrong people, you’ll tank your statistics.

Let’s say you’re a B2B company that sells software for fitness companies. If you send a cold email to a company that sells dog treats, they probably won’t have a use for your software. They might read it, but they’ll either end up deleting it or flagging it as junk.

If they simply delete it, then you just have to worry about your click-through and reply rates taking a hit. But if they mark it as spam, it sends a message to their ISP that you aren’t a reliable sender. And that can hurt your delivery rate in the long run. In a worst-case scenario, too many of these spam-related red flags, and you can find yourself on a blocklist. And that’s a whole other issue you don’t want to deal with.

So the sufficient number of emails will vary based on your brand and your target audience. It’s better to send fewer emails to people who are more likely to engage with your content than to send cold emails to everyone under the sun.

How to Warm Up Your Inbox

Another factor that many marketing teams often forget is that you have to warm up your inbox before you start sending out a high volume of emails.

Failing to warm up your inbox before you launch a campaign can make ISPs think that you’re an unreliable sender. And as we said earlier, unreliable senders get forwarded to spam.

Inbox warming is the process of slowly ramping up the number of emails you send from an account. Increasing the number of emails you send over time allows ISPs to recognize you as a trustworthy sender.

Warming up your inbox takes about six to eight weeks. Once you identify the total number of emails you want to send in a day, you send out a few more emails each day until you reach that target amount.

We’re not going to lie; this process is tedious. But it is crucial to a successful email campaign. Luckily, you can take advantage of a tool like Warmup Inbox to automate the process so you can focus on developing your templates and gathering emails while your inbox gets warm.

Metric Two: Delivery Rate

Delivery rate = number of emails that are delivered ÷ total number of emails sent

Your delivery rate measures how many emails get delivered. Your delivery rate is essentially the opposite of a bounce rate, which measures how many emails are returned to sender. A low delivery rate is bad because it means that your emails aren’t going where they’re supposed to, and a super low delivery rate can mean that you’re on a blocklist.

It’s also important to note that the delivery rate doesn’t consider whether your emails are delivered to the recipients’ inboxes. An email forwarded to a spam folder is still considered a delivered email.

How to Know When Emails Are Delivered

You’ll get an email every time one of your emails bounces back to you. This report will let you know why the email bounced, and you can move forward from there.

What to do When Emails Are Not Delivered

There are various reasons why your emails may not be delivered. Sometimes a person takes a job at a new company, and that email has been deactivated. Sometimes the person’s inbox is full and can’t accept new emails. And sometimes, you’re on a blocklist, and you can’t send any emails at all.

If your emails aren’t getting delivered:

Metric Three: Open Rates

Open Rate = number of emails opened ÷ total number of emails delivered

Your open rate measures how many people saw your email and decided to open it to read more. This metric relies heavily on catchy subject lines.

While it may not be the most important metric in the bunch, it does help you pinpoint where a potential problem may lie. If people aren’t opening your messages, it indicates an issue with your “from” or subject line. If your recipients open the email but don’t follow the call to action, then the problem is with the body of your email.

Try to keep your open rate above 60%.

How to Track Open Rates

Obviously, you can’t call each of your recipients to ask if they opened your email. But you can employ an email metric software that will report how many people open your messages.

How to Improve Open Rates

• Use catchy (but not spammy) subject lines that intrigue the reader
• Include personal touches in the subject line
• Keep your subject line short enough so that it doesn’t get truncated
• Have your “from” line be from an identifiable name (“Sam from Warmup Inbox” vs. “noreply@warmupinbox.com”)
• Run A/B tests to see what’s working

Metric Four: Click-Through Rate

Click-Through Rate = number of recipients who clicked the link attached to your CTA ÷ total number of emails sent

Click-through rate (CTR) analyzes how many people opened your email and decided to click on the link to learn more. While CTR doesn’t indicate conversion, it does show how many people are moving farther down your sales funnel because of your email.

A CTR of over 25% is considered good, and anything over 37% indicates a successful campaign.

How to Track CTR

Tracking your CTR requires using click tracking, which can be risky because click tracking can seem like spam content to ISPs. Using a reliable email metrics platform can ensure that you’re staying compliant with the laws regarding click tracking.

In most cases, your cold emails will include a unique URL that enables you to track how many people end up clicking on it. If you do use a tracking link, it’s best not to include any other link in your email other than the link to your website in your signature.

How to Improve CTR

A low CTR may indicate that the body of your email wasn’t compelling enough or your CTA wasn’t clear. Some things you can do include:

• Testing different button colors on the CTA link
• Experimenting with different offers
• Changing the CTA text
• Editing the copy of the email so it’s more relevant or succinct

Metric Five: Reply Rates

Reply Rate = number of replies received ÷ total number of emails sent

Your reply rate tells you how many people are responding to your emails. This metric is one of the most crucial factors for cold emailing because the campaign’s purpose is to start conversations with your leads.

While CTR is a good indicator that people are engaging with your content, a reply is a more substantial response because it shows your customers’ desire to take the following steps with your brand. And if your email piqued their interest, then your response can get into the meat of your sales pitch.

Ideally, you want your reply rate to be at or above 20%.

How to Track Reply Rates

Tracking your reply rate is relatively simple because you just have to count the number of people who replied to your message. It may be helpful to take notes about whether the response was positive or negative.

How to Improve Reply Rates

• Try using different CTAs
• Leave out links altogether and have your CTA focus on replying to your message
• Ask a question that warrants a response
• Keep the email short so your reader is left wanting to know more
• Clean up your email list so you’re sending messages to a relevant audience

Wrapping Up

Tracking metrics is an excellent tool for gauging the effectiveness of a cold email campaign. As with all things in business, there’s always room for improvement.

As you get comfortable with these basic metrics, you can begin exploring other KPI analytics to see how your emails are measuring up. Advanced metrics include everything from positive reply rate to spam complaint rate.

Employing software is the easiest way to run analytics on your email, but getting the numbers is only half the battle. You still have to put in the work to make the adjustments for your future campaigns to be successful.

Tweaking your templates to be more targeted, personalized, and specific will help you improve your metrics all around. Cold email campaigns are all about fostering connections, and the body of your email is your first impression on these recipients who have never heard of you before. Make sure your first impression is incredible.

Additionally, take every step you can to ensure that your emails find their way into people’s inboxes. You can do this by setting up email authentication, staying off of blocklists, and keeping your inbox warm.

Originally published at https://blog.warmupinbox.com on December 3, 2021.

Guest post written by: The Emailable Team

Email Marketing Campaigns: Your Secret Weapon

Email marketing campaigns can directly target someone and turn them into a customer. The overall idea sounds great, but many email marketers fear they could lose money if the campaign is unsuccessful.

Search engine optimization (SEO) and internet marketing professionals have begun to leave email marketing on the back burner or think it’s on the brink of death due to the rise in social media. Luckily, That could not be further from the truth. Email marketing is often times misunderstood and that is quite unfortunate because it is the most profitable marketing medium there is today.

Let’s Define Email Marketing Campaigns

Email marketing is a direct channel that is used as a form of communication from brands to their customers. It’s designed to promote products or services to new or existing customers. Essentially, email marketing acts as the foundation for brands and businesses to engage and develop relationships with their customers.

Email marketing can help make customers aware of the latest items or promotions by integrating it with a company’s marketing automation efforts. It also plays a key role in the overall marketing strategy with lead generation, brand awareness, relationship building, and keeping customers engaged between purchases through different types of marketing emails.

How to Make Your Email Marketing Campaigns Work for You

The overall goal of this article is to help you understand how email marketing works, and how to make sure you’re not losing money from your efforts. In this article, we will discuss the essential factors to ensure the best performance on email marketing campaigns and how to get you the best ROI.

Warm Up Your IP Address Before Beginning An Email Marketing Campaign

IP warming is the process of progressively ramping up your email volume to a new IP address over time. This process can take place over several days, weeks, or months in order to create a foundation for a positive sending reputation with email service providers.

Email service providers may view email addresses from a new IP address as suspicious until they have established a positive sending reputation. It can take anywhere from 4–8 weeks to achieve maximum deliverability. Maximum email deliverability means that your IP address will not be flagged and your emails will get delivered to the desired inboxes.

Email Warming is a crucial step to take before performing any type of email marketing campaign. You could create the best content or have the best deal in the world, but if your internet service provider (ISP) flags you as spam, all of that hard work will be thrown into the spam folder. ISPs check blacklists for IP Addresses with poor reputation, so it’s imperative to keep your IP reputation high if you plan on performing an email outreach campaign.

Time is Money During An Email Marketing Campaign

Your customers typically will always have a full inbox, from work emails to promotional invitations. Because of this, you need to stand out from the rest. But, what’s important is to keep it short, sweet, and concise. There is a sweet spot between sending too little and too many marketing emails and this will depend on its content and your subscribers. Keep in mind that too many emails can reek of desperation in the eyes of your customers, add clutter to inboxes, and put you at a higher risk of getting marked as spam.

To help ensure that you’re not losing money or wasting your time on your email marketing campaigns, you need to be strategic with what you are sending and to whom you are sending it. Inboxes are saturated with emails, whether they be work or from brands, increase conversions and minimize the possibility of losing a sale by segmenting your email lists. Guarantee that the important information gets to the right people. This not only helps to keep your information relevant and less annoying but also increases the personalization aspect, and aids in your engagement with your customers because they are receiving the information they’d actually want to use.

Clean Your Lists Before Beginning An Email Marketing Campaign

When you clean your list, you rid yourself of any potential threats to your IP address. This will not only save you money, but will also improve email deliverability and your sender reputation.

Email list cleaning is the best and most effective way to keep your database healthy and free of any unwanted or potentially dangerous contacts that could harm your IP address. A dirty list can put you in harm’s way of ending up within a spam trap or blacklisted. Email list cleaning can protect all of your hard work from never being delivered or viewed by your target customer.

Customers are bound to change their emails or subscribe to your newsletter with a misspelled address. You will never know this unless you clean your email lists on a regular basis. Now, if you have a list of thousands and thousands, it is an incredibly daunting task to try and go through each email, one by one, to make sure that they are valid addresses. Instead, use a service that can do this for you in a matter of minutes: Emailable, which is the most cost-effective and efficient way to clean your lists so you can be sure that you will reach your audience.

In this day and age, sending an email is not enough, you need to know that they are getting delivered. By having a clean list you are able to:

• Improve deliverability AND email marketing campaign ROI
• Ensure that your email campaigns are getting to the right inboxes
• Increase your chances of conversions
• Become less likely to lose money over failed delivery

Create a Better Email Customer Experience During Email Marketing Campaigns

Put yourself in the shoes of your subscribers. Strive to make their experience more enjoyable and something that they would actually look forward to receiving.

Keep in mind, every email that you send is something that can take time away from your subscribers’ day. In all honesty, they may end up deleting it without opening it. Improve your customers’ experience by easily providing an opt-out or unsubscribe button. As we mentioned above, you should only be sending emails that are relevant to that customer.

Use the tools of your email process to identify the customers who aren’t interacting with your content. Don’t continue to email them if they are no longer interested. Instead, try to reactivate them with special messaging, reduce the frequency of your emails to them, or drop them from your list completely. By reducing the number of emails that get no interaction, it will help your customers and help your emails get delivered, costing you less money and stress.

Lastly, do not send offers to those that don’t apply. Meaning, remember how we spoke about personalization and segmenting your email lists? Make sure that the offers you provide are valid for the recipients you send them to. Imagine the aggravation of someone who is eager to try out this new offer but they’re ineligible.

To Conclude

Increase your email marketing strategies and avoid losing money during email marketing campaigns by following these tips. Your IP address should be properly warmed up before beginning your campaign. Remember, it’s extremely important to have a great sender reputation score and high deliverability. If you skip this step, you risk all of your hard work going straight to the spam folder.

Keep your emails concise and aimed at a targeted audience to ensure that your content provides value to the recipient. Maintain a clean and healthy email list through an email checker, and never worry about the deliverability of your emails again.

Lastly, keep your customer experience a positive one. Make your emails something that people look forward to receiving.

Originally published at https://blog.warmupinbox.com on November 17, 2021.

Spoiler alert: cold emails are actually effective.*

*If they’re written well

Cold emails are a great way to engage with new leads. People get a tsunami of messages in their inbox daily, and the idea of trying to ride that wave into having your message stand out from the crowd can be daunting.

The truth is, half the battle is getting into your recipients’ inboxes rather than their spam folders. The rest is all about getting them to open your message and read it all the way through.

So how do you craft a good cold email? We’re glad you asked.

What Is A Cold Email?

A cold email is an introductory message you send to someone who has no relationship with your brand. It’s entirely possible that this person hasn’t even heard of your business before.

If we’re being blunt, it is an unsolicited email. But ideally, the person you’re reaching out to is someone who would genuinely benefit from your product or service.

The goal of cold emails is to connect with someone who fits your target demographic and hopefully turn them into a warm lead. Often, companies will include some sort of incentive to encourage the reader to further engage with the brand, such as starting a free trial, booking a demo or meeting to learn more, and watching a helpful video.

Why Use Cold Emails?

If cold emails are unsolicited messages, and people already get a ton of emails they actually signed up for, then what’s the point of sending cold emails?

For starters, email is the least intrusive way to strike up a conversation with someone you’ve never talked to as a company. Receiving cold calls and knocks on the front door is an annoyance to most people, and they aren’t exactly in the most positive mindset when you start your pitch.

However, with cold emails, your customer can read your message in their own time, so you aren’t infringing on their day. Your representatives will feel more at ease because they won’t get hung up on or have the door slammed in their faces.

Emails can be personalized in a way that other methods of introduction can’t. Personalizing a cold email makes it feel less like an intrusion and more like a letter from a pen pal.

And it’s also helpful to note that cold email has a stellar return on investment (ROI). Emails cost nearly nothing to send, you can reach so many more people in a shorter amount of time, and your leads are far more likely to engage with your content in an email.

Components of A Cold Email

Because cold emails are all about quickly creating a relationship, it’s best to adopt a casual, conversational tone while staying relatively informal.

Now, that doesn’t mean to bust out the emojis, LOLs, and relaxed syntax, but that does mean that you’re going to write this email as if you’re sending a message to someone you’ve known your whole life.

At the same time, stay true to your brand. If it feels inauthentic to you when you write it, it’ll likely feel inauthentic to the reader as well.

Writing a cold email is a lot like writing a high school essay: you must have a clear beginning, middle, and end.

The Subject Line Of Your Cold Email

The first thing your potential customer will see is who the email is from and the subject line. Right off the bat, they should know who you are and what you’re doing in their inbox.

For example, if you’re a company that sells organic cat beds, and a customer gets an email from “noreply” about “Fluffy’s Fantastic Fit!” they’re going to be confused. But if they get a message saying, “Upgrade Your Cat’s Bed” from “Cat Kingdom Organics,” then they’ll probably know exactly what your email entails.

We’re not claiming that’s an ideal subject line. The moral of this story is to have your “from” come from either your business name or a person with your business’s name (“Jake from State Farm”) and to have your subject clearly demonstrate what to expect in the rest of the email (“Pay less for car insurance”).

Introduction Of Your Cold Email

Now that your recipient has opened your email, you introduce yourself and state the reason why you’re reaching out.

Body Of Your Cold Email

The body will take up most of the email, as it will go into detail about the products/services your brand offers and why this person needs them in their life.

Closing/Call to Action Of Your Cold Email

At the very end of your message, you’ll provide this person with a nudge in the director of the next actionable step they can take in engaging with your brand. This could be a link to “claim their 15% off” or “start their free trial” or “book a meeting to learn more.” Whatever the call to action is, it should be clear and directly move them farther down the sales funnel.

And of course, you’ll provide your name, title, contact information, and company website in your signature, so they know there’s a person behind the email and can get in touch with you if they have any questions.

Make Your Cold Email Personalized

Since people get so many emails in a day, they’re more likely to respond well to those that feel like they were written specifically for them.

The easiest way to personalize a cold email is to use their name. Unless you’re randomly sending out emails (which you shouldn’t be), then you should have names with the email addresses. Multiple services automate the process of inserting people’s names into emails.

Starting an email with “Hi (Customer Name)” is infinitely more appealing than an email that begins with “Dear Sir/Ma’am, I think you’d like my product or service because of X, Y, Z.” And don’t get us started on “To whom it may concern.” Even though it’s a cold email, you want the content to feel warm.

You can even personalize the subject line of your email. Having a personalized subject line is a great way to catch their attention because your email will stand out. A personalized subject line could look like “We’ve got a great deal for you, (Customer Name)” or “Only open if you’re going to (Industry Conference Name).”

If you want to go above and beyond in personalization, take time to think about who this person is, what they want, what their interests are, and how they see the world. Once you know that, you’ll know exactly how to write content that feels like you guys have been best friends for years.

TL; DR: Know who you’re reaching out to before you draft your email or make changes to a template. A little personalization goes a long way.

Get to the Point Quickly in Your Cold Email

This begins with your subject line. We said it before, and we’ll say it again: your subject line needs to tell your potential client why they’re getting this email. It’s illegal if you don’t, but also, if you do your homework, this person could actually benefit from your services and will want to read more.

Your subject line should be catchy, but it shouldn’t be too clickbait-y, or an ISP might mistake it for spam.

Your subject line should be short and sweet. Try to cap it at 50 characters or 6–7 words, as research by Return Path has shown that to be the ideal count for a subject line.

Once a person decides to open your email, you have approximately five seconds to convince them to keep reading. The best way to do that? Jump right in.

In your introduction, you don’t want to dawdle. Instead, say who you are, touch on a pain point, then offer your product or service as a solution to that pain point.

In your body, you’re going to give the elevator pitch of your value proposition. You’ll succinctly state what your product or service offers, how users benefit from your product or service, and why you’re different from your competitors.

However, it’s essential not to get caught up in listing every last detail about your product or service. It’s like going on a blind date and only talking about yourself. We know you’re trying to impress them, but it’s not having the effect you think it is.

Instead, you’ll show this person that you’ve done your research by highlighting the parts of your product or service that can impact their daily life. Adjusting the tone from “we’re awesome because of X, Y, and Z” to “I know you struggle with X, and our product/service offers Y to fix that problem” can make a massive difference to the person reading a cold email.

In other words, the initial email should be about trying to establish a relationship rather than making a sale. But being long-winded will not encourage this person to read all the way to the end of the email. Give them just enough of a taste that they want to follow up to learn more.

Your call to action should sum up everything that the customer just read with the added information of what to do next. Think of your closing as the bow on top of the present that says, “We’re offering you this; all you have to do is this.” And you’ll either have a link or a big button with a link that encourages the reader to click on it.

If you want to keep things simple, your call to action could be replying to the email to set up a meeting. You can end the email with something like, “If you have 30 minutes at some point this week, we can hop on a call, and I can explain how my product or service does X, Y, and Z. Just let me know what your schedule looks like.”

Either way, you’re encouraging them to strengthen the connection. After all, they read the email all the way through, and that’s a good sign.

Warmup Your Inbox Before Sending Cold Emails

Remember how in the intro, we said half the battle was getting into your recipients’ inboxes? We’re gonna circle back to that now.

You could write the best cold emails in the world, but that doesn’t do you any good if your emails only end up in spam folders. One of the best things you can do to improve your deliverability rate is to warm up your inbox before you launch a cold email campaign.

We’re grateful that ISPs are extra cautious when keeping users safe by filtering through their incoming messages. But it’s hard to feel that gratitude when your non-spam email is flagged as junk.

One of the top reasons marketing teams end up in junk folders is because spammers have a habit of opening an email account and sending out emails in bulk before they get blocklisted. So if an ISP sees that you suddenly sent out a thousand emails in a day when you usually only send out two hundred, they’re going to think there’s something phishy going on.

Instead of suddenly increasing the volume of emails you send in a day, warming up your inbox enables you to slowly ramp up the number of messages you send each day until you hit your target goal.

Warmup Inbox has everything you need to stop sending your cold emails directly to your customers’ spam folders. You could do the warming process yourself, but it’s a lot of manual, menial labor, and frankly, it’s a waste of your time and talents.

While we’re automatically warming up your inbox in the background, you could be focusing on discovering more leads, strategizing for future campaigns, or crafting the emails you want to send when your inbox is warm.

When your inbox is warm, the carefully tailored messages will land right where you want them: in the recipients’ inboxes.

Additionally, Warmup Inbox’s software will give you live updates on the health of your inbox to help you strengthen your reputation and increase your deliverability rate.

To discover how Warmup Inbox can revolutionize your cold email marketing strategy, learn more here or start your free trial today.

Originally published at https://blog.warmupinbox.com on October 20, 2021.

There are so many email terms out there, and it can get confusing. We totally get it, which is why we’re here to help.

It’s normal to scratch your head at what a Mail Transfer Agent (MTA) is because it’s often called numerous other things:

• A mail server
• Mail relay
• Mail router
• Internet mailer
• Message transfer agent (MTA)
• Mail transport agent (MTA)

Let’s clear the air once and for all: these terms refer to the same thing. For this particular article, we’ll call it a Mail Transfer Agent, or MTA.

Outside of this article, you can call it by whichever name you like best. But no matter its name, MTAs are a vital part of sending and receiving emails.

Mail Transfer Agent Definition

Mail Transfer Agents are the software in charge of getting emails from point A to point B. When you send an email, it’s given to an MTA to begin the delivery process.

Between the time you hit send and the email arrives in the recipient’s inbox, MTAs take care of everything, including:

• Queueing
• Throttling
• Scheduling
• Managing connections
• Transferring data
• Processing deferrals
• Generating bounces
• Tracking delivery status.

As you can see, MTAs stay pretty busy.

MTAs use Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) to complete all of their tasks. SMTP works to transfer data as intended, and MTAs carry out the functions specified by the protocols.

MTAs work behind the scenes to ensure secure and efficient email delivery. Most users interact with an email marketing tool or their email provider rather than the MTA interface. But when MTAs are correctly configured, the deliverability and performance of your email campaigns can skyrocket.

How Do Mail Transfer Agents Work?

The MTA is a part of the chain of events that gets the message you send to the intended recipient.

When you hit send, the message is transferred from your Mail User Agent (MUA), your email client. Your MUA passes it along to the Mail or Message Submission Agent (MSA), then the MSA forwards the message to the MTA.

Now that the MTA has it, it begins passing the message like a baton to get it to the recipient’s Mail Delivery Agent (MDA). If you’re sending an email to a local server, the process is pretty quick. But if your recipient isn’t on a local server, then one MTA will pass the message along to another MTA until it reaches an MTA that can get to the MDA.

We know that’s incredibly confusing. Think of it as if you’re sending paper invitations to a party. Some of your guests live in the same town as you do, so the post office that accepts the invitation can bring these invites directly to the recipients.

But let’s say you’re sending an invitation to someone out of state. When your post office gets the invitation, they have to send it to a larger post office that can put it on an airmail carrier. Once it lands, it’s sent to another post office so your recipient’s local delivery person can put it in their mailbox.

Back to email sending, once the MDA gets it, it’s sent to the recipient’s MUA and is delivered.

Sender’s MUA -> MSA -> MTA -> (MTA -> MTA ->) MDA -> Recipient’s MUA

While the MTA has a message, it queries the MX records and chooses a mail server to transfer the emails. If an email can’t be delivered to its final destination, the MTA sends the automatic response to let the sender know.

Queuing Emails

Since MTAs are juggling a plethora of messages, they generally handle mail with a “store-and-forward” model. When they receive a message, they put it into a line and ping the recipient’s server. Once the server responds, the email is sent through.

MTAs will make multiple attempts to reach the server, but if they don’t get a response, they’ll send the message back to the sender.

How Do Mail Transfer Agents Affect Email Deliverability?

MTAs directly influence email deliverability because they can protect and strengthen your sender’s reputation. Numerous factors impact your deliverability rate, but your domain and IP reputation carry the most weight. That’s because as soon as a receiving server identifies a sender as unsafe, all future messages from them are sent right to the junk folder or bounced back.

MTAs help bolster your email reputation in multiple ways.

Warming Up Your IP Address

Especially if you’re sending out mass emails for marketing campaigns, your email needs to be warm before you start sending out your target number of messages.

MTAs are a significant component of IP warming because they help you route your test emails during the warming process. Your MTA can help you hit your daily targets of sent messages without sending out more messages than you should.

Configuring Sending Flows

Receiving domains set limits on incoming mail, and if the limit is exceeded, they may mistake the sending server as an untrustworthy source.

You can configure your MTA to limit sending when needed and avoid this problem. If the recipient’s domain rejects a message, your MTA will pause the email queue for that domain. After some time has passed, the MTA will resume sending messages from that queue at a slower pace until everything is back to normal.

This helps protect your sender’s reputation by stopping any unnecessary delivery failures.

Bypassing the Graylist

Sometimes receiving servers will use a graylist to protect their users from spam messages. Graylists use MTAs to temporarily reject any email from a sender the server doesn’t recognize.

When a message is graylisted, the recipient’s server sends a request to the sender’s server to attempt delivery again later. Legitimate servers will recognize this request and send the message again, and the recipient’s server will accept it.

MTAs help streamline this process by putting the returned message into a new queue and resending it when it’s safe to do so.

Additionally, MTAs can be used for setting up email throttling rules, routing guidelines, monitoring the flow of outgoing mail, and more.

How Are Mail Transfer Agents Used in Email Marketing?

In email marketing, MTAs are used to increase your deliverability rate. When you’re trying to reach a broad audience, you need as many tools as possible to ensure your emails get to your customer’s inboxes.

Like we always say, writing awesome emails is only half the battle; getting them in front of your customers is the main fight.

Before you begin warming up a new domain or IP address, you can install an MTA on your mail server to help queue your emails and guarantee smooth delivery.

What Are Some of the Most Popular MTAs?

• Sendmail/Proofpoint: Proofpoint recently acquired Sendmail, but many people still know the MTA by its OG name. As one of the oldest MTAs, Sendmail is old reliable.
• Postfix: Postfix provides an easy-to-use platform that also enables junk mail control, multiple protocols, database and mailbox support, and address manipulation.
• Exim: Exim is free and flexible and has utilities like Lemonade to enable mobile messaging and more. Its list of configurations includes access control lists, content scanning, encryption, and routing controls.
• Qmail: This MTA is also free, and Qmail is tiny but mighty. It packs a punch while being reliable, secure, and efficient.
• Mutt: Mutt is a terminal-based client for Unix-style operating systems. Some of its features include message threading, support for multiple mailbox formats, delivery status support, and multiple message tagging.
• Alpine: Based on the Pine messaging system, Alpine is a great option for starters because it’s easy to navigate. The terminal-based email client is highly customizable through the setup command platform.
• OpenSMTP: OpenSMTP is an open-source MTA that comes with a web service that allows sending emails through an HTTP webserver. It’s primarily used for local deliveries or relaying messages to other SMTP servers.

For more tips and tricks to increase your deliverability, visit our blog.

Originally published at https://blog.warmupinbox.com on October 15, 2021.

An email header is a short string of code that’s used to authenticate an HTML message.

You’ve heard all about how essential it is to have a snappy email subject line in email marketing. You know that it’s crucial to have your “from” address clearly state your company’s name or a person’s name. You know that without warming up your inbox, you could end up in junk folders.

So what’s an email header, and why haven’t we talked about them before? Can we go about business as usual without bothering with email headers?

What Is An Email Header And What Do They Do?

Email headers are more than just the addresses, date, and subject section of a message. An email header is a short string of code that’s used to authenticate an HTML message. The header always comes before the email body.

Email headers serve three purposes:

• Providing information about who sent the message and who is supposed to receive the message
• Preventing spam and phishing attacks
• Tracking the email route

When a recipient gets a message, they can use the email header to ensure that it isn’t spoofed. The person receiving the message can also use the header to verify that the email is safe before clicking on links within the message.

As the person running an email marketing campaign, you should care about your email headers because they play a vital role in getting your message into your recipients’ inbox.

Since every email has a header, mail transfer agents (MTAs) will use the header to determine whether or not the message is coming from the person it says it’s coming from. If an email has been sent to other addresses before reaching the intended recipient, the MTA will flag it as suspicious to prevent their user from a potential cyberattack.

Headers are comprised of a string of metadata that shows the message’s journey from the moment the initial sender clicked send. Marketing teams can run tests to determine what security protocols they need to implement to get their messages out of spam folders and into inboxes.

How to Find an Email Header

Finding an email header is similar across all email platforms, but each provider has a somewhat unique process. We’ll review how to look at email headers for the most popular platforms, but be sure that you’re looking at a message from the recipient’s perspective.

How to View an Email Header on Gmail

Gmail takes advantage of machine learning to create a platform that gives users a nearly spam-free inbox. Understanding what your header looks like to Gmail can help you tweak your header to maximize your chances of getting into the primary inbox.

1. Click on the vertical three-dot icon to the right of the reply button on a message
2. Click “Show original” from the drop-down menu; this will take you to an overview of the information in the message
3. At the bottom of the form, you can click on “Download original” to get the header or click on “Copy to clipboard” to paste it somewhere else

How to View an Email Header on Microsoft Outlook

Microsoft accounts are the most targeted platforms for cybercrime, so customers may be more likely to check the email header for a message coming in from an unrecognized sender.

1. Click on the horizontal three-dot icon to the right of the forward button on a message
2. Hover over “View” on the drop-down menu
3. Click on “View message source” at the bottom of the drop-down menu under “View”

How to View an Email Header on Yahoo

1. Click on the horizontal three-dot icon next to the “Spam” button at the top of an email
2. Click “View raw message” from the drop-down menu

How to View an Email Header on Mozilla Thunderbird

1. Click on the horizontal three-line icon in the top right corner of a message
2. Click on “View” to see another menu
3. Click on “Headers” under the View menu
4. Select “All” from the Headers menu

On Thunderbird, you can simply cress Control+U when you open the email, but it shows a lot more information than just the header, which can be confusing if you’re unsure what to look for.

How to View an Email Header on iCloud Mail

For the browser application:

1. Click on the Gear icon on a message
2. Click on “Show Long Headers”

For the Mac Mail Application:

1. Open the message, then click on “View” on the top toolbar
2. Hover over “Message” on the View drop-down menu
3. Click on “Raw Source” on the Message drop-down menu

How to View an Email Header on Zoho Mail

1. Click on the v-shaped icon to the right of the forward button on a message
2. Click on “Show original”
3. At the top of the content, you can click on “Download full content,” “Copy to clipboard,” or “Show full content”

How to View an Email Header on AOL

1. Click on the “More” button above the subject line
2. Click on “View Message Source,” which will open a new window with the header

How To Understand Email Headers

Now that you’ve downloaded the raw metadata, the next task is to interpret the information in front of you.

Let’s break down the different tags you’re likely to see in the email header’s metadata.

• From: Shows who the sender is
• To: Shows the intended recipient, including those carbon copied (CC) and blind carbon copied (BCC)
• Subject: Shows what you wrote in the subject line
• Return Path or Reply-To: The email address that a reply email is sent to
• Envelope-To: Shows who the email was sent to
• Date: Timestamp of when an email was sent, usually in day, dd month yyyy hh:mm:ss format (Tues, 12 Oct 2021 12:03:21)
• Received: Shows the email address of the recipient and all other addresses the email passed through on its way to the recipient
• DKIM Signature and DomainKeys: Shows signatures to help ISPs authenticate the senders by connecting the domain name with the email
• Message-ID: A unique string of letters and numbers automatically generated when an email is written
• MIME Version: Shows the Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) version used to extend an email’s format and functionality
• Content-Type: Shows whether an email is text-only or uses HTML
• X-Spam-Status: Gives the spam score of an email and whether it was flagged as spam
• X-Spam-Level: Shows an asterisk for every spam point an email gains

Do Email Headers Matter?

Email headers are vital for your email deliverability rate. Especially when launching a cold email campaign, you want to ensure that the email headers are clean and accurate, so you don’t end up in any spam folders.

Like so many other email safety protocols, headers are another tool that recipients and ISPs have to prevent malicious attacks. The best thing you can do for your email reputation and deliverability rate is to implement DKIM to help authenticate your message.

Running tests to view your email headers can help you understand why some of your messages may be going to spam and give you guideposts to figure out how to get back on track. Before you launch a massive campaign, send out a preliminary email to make sure that the information contained in the header is correct.

The more you do to keep your recipients safe, the better your domain reputation and the more inboxes you’ll land in. Monitoring email headers are just another piece of the deliverability puzzle, and they serve as an excellent tool for improving your email campaigns.

For more helpful tips and tricks to boost your team’s deliverability rate, visit our blog.

Originally published at https://blog.warmupinbox.com on October 15, 2021.

What Is Cold Email?

A cold email is a message you’ve sent to a person you’ve never interacted with before. Think of it as the modern, less abrasive version of cold calling. Cold calling usually pitches a hard sell, but cold emails provide a different opportunity. Your readers can open the message on their time, and if your copy is written well, then they’ll be more inclined to push the button that will lead them to your site.

Seems easy enough, right?

Unfortunately, engaging cold emailing is so much easier said than done. Since you don’t have a relationship with the person you’re emailing, they might not be willing to read your email. And since you can’t see them or hear them, you have no way of knowing what their reaction is. Sometimes cold emailing can make you feel like you’re a kid at a birthday party blindly trying to make contact with the piñata that’s just out of reach.

Don’t get discouraged, though-cold emailing can still be highly effective as long as you have the right tools in your arsenal.

Before we get too far into this article, it’s essential to understand the difference between spam and cold emails.

Spam emails are characterized by the same message sent to a bunch of people on an indiscriminate mailing list. The content is usually misleading or malicious. As more people have used email, more scammers have sent out spam, leading to increased security and protocols like the CAN-SPAM Act.

On the other hand, cold emails are sent by sales reps to qualified leads. The emails are typically personalized and always add value or provide information.

However, because there isn’t any previous interaction between you and your recipient, highly sensitive internet service providers and spam filters may think your content is malicious and accidentally send you to spam folders. (Don’t get too mad at them, they’re just trying to do their jobs and keep people safe.)

As internet service providers try to figure out whether an email is safe for the recipient, they’ll look at numerous factors that make up your domain reputation. For cold emailing to be effective, your domain reputation must be positive. But more on that later.

Is Cold Email Effective?

When cold emailing is done right, it’s incredibly effective. So, the question is less of if cold emailing is effective and more how to make cold emailing effective.

Deliverability

An undeliverable email (or an email in a spam folder) is an ineffective email. So, the first thing to consider when planning a cold email campaign is your deliverability rate. You can use various tools to warm up your inbox and verify your recipient’s information.

Targeting

If you remember from the last section, we said one of the crucial differences between spam and cold emails is the recipient list. Everyone has different wants and needs, so you should only send your cold emails to quality leads.

At the same time, it’s important not to go buy an email list from someone selling “perfect leads for your target audience.” Most of the time, these lists are filled with inactive or spam trap addresses.

Instant Appeal

Your goal is for the recipient to open your email, read it, go to your website, and buy something from you. But if you don’t catch their attention right away, they’ll delete your message. A catchy subject line and compelling content will go a long way in a cold email.

Value

Emailing a friend just to say hi is totally fine and normal, but this doesn’t work as well for cold emailing. When you’re sending a message to someone you’ve never interacted with, you have to give them a reason to want to engage with you. Yes, introduce yourself, but also provide them with something that’ll keep them around.

The Benefits of Cold Email

Many marketing teams take advantage of cold email campaigns because of the benefits associated with them.

Cold emailing is easy because you can reach a larger audience with crafty copy and the push of a button. As long as you have their (valid) email address, you can attempt to contact them.

Since emails cost almost nothing to send, you can have an extremely high return on investment for your email marketing campaigns.

Cold emailing is scalable, so your efforts can grow with your business. Plus, it’s so much less intrusive than cold calling.

Cold Email Examples

There are three commonly used formats for effective cold emailing: AIDA, BAB, and PAS

AIDA — Action, Interest, Desire, Action

You’ll start your email with a claim that seems too good to be true (but is completely legit) to catch the reader’s attention. You’ll then use some kind of proof to back up your claim to heighten their interest.

Then, you’ll give an example of how your product or service can transform the reader’s life, turning their interest and desire. You’ll close it out with a call to action to help them get started.

BAB — Before, After, Bridge

This email format is all about storytelling and focuses on the problem to the solution. You’ll explain what life was like before, what life is like after, and finally, how your product or service is the bridge between the two.

PAS — Problem, Agitate, Solve

The PAS format is a lot like BAB, but in this instance, you’ll start by acknowledging the pain points and then talk about how they hinder daily activities. The idea is to get the reader riled up so when you offer the solution, they’re more receptive to the idea.

Cold Email Strategies

Here are some cold email strategies to use during your next email marketing campaign:

Catch Their Eye with an Exciting Subject Line

Approximately one-third of recipients will determine whether to open an email just by reading the subject line.

Your subjects should be short enough so that they don’t get truncated and intriguing enough to capture your reader’s attention quickly. People get so many emails every day, so it’s essential to make sure yours stands out.

The trickiest part is crafting a subject that piques curiosity while clearly displaying what the email will be about. The best way to do this is to think about your target audience and what will appeal to them. No matter what, don’t use a misleading subject line. (It’s illegal.)

Personalization

Your recipients will be more inclined to open an email if it doesn’t feel like a generic, run-of-the-mill message. Use the recipient’s name and make sure the “From” line either has your company’s name or a human’s name. Sending an email to “Customer” from “noreply@mybusiness.com” won’t get you very far.

Let them Get to Know You

Don’t spend the entire message talking about yourself, but give a quick snapshot of who you are and why this person should listen to you. State what your company’s mission, what your position is, your common interest, and the reason you’re reaching out. You can include testimonials, reviews, social media posts, and more to make you seem like less of a stranger.

Commiserate with Your Recipient

Since you’re reaching out to this person for a reason, touch on the pain points associated with the reason they need your product or service. Emphasize how these pain points are likely impacting their daily life, short-term goals, and long-term plans.

Then, show them how you can provide the solution.

Close with a Strong CTA

As you introduce this person into your sales funnel, give them a clear next step to take. This can be anything from scheduling a meeting with you to starting a free trial to downloading an exclusive resource.

No matter what note you end on, be sure it leaves the door open for more engagement.

Warm Up Your Inbox Before Sending A Cold Email

Before you launch a cold email campaign, it’s crucial to warm up your inbox to improve your deliverability. Utilizing Warmup Inbox will automatically increase your email deliverability rates as well as increase your domain reputation and decrease the likelihood of your inbox and domain being added to any blacklists or deactivated for suspicion of spam.

Warming up your inbox takes some time, but it can help internet service providers recognize you as a safe and valid sender.

Warmup Inbox has all the tools you need to improve your overall deliverability so you can make the most of your cold emailing campaigns. Get started today.

Originally published at https://blog.warmupinbox.com on September 23, 2021.

How an Email Warming Service Works

Manually warming up your inbox takes a great deal of time and effort to steadily increase the volume of emails you’re sending. The good news is that there are services out there that will automate the process for you. Utilizing this effective email marketing tool will enable you to focus on other parts of your email campaign.

All you are required to do is link your email address with the warmup service and configure it to match your goals for email volume. While you’re doing other things within your email marketing strategy, the warmup service gets to work.

When you open a new personal email account, you can start sending messages to your friends right away. So why is it any different for business emails?

Well, in a perfect world, your business email is sending out multiple marketing emails to your long subscriber list. But if you open a new domain and immediately send out an email blast to your 2,000 subscribers, internet service providers are going to think that you’re a spammer. So, it’s essential to dip your toes in the water before you cannonball.

Email warming services will automatically send emails out on behalf of your account. These emails will be opened, read, replied to in threaded discussions, favorited, and categorized to simulate real human interaction.

The number of emails sent from your account will slowly increase until it reaches the maximum you set. (Most users set their maximum as the target number of emails they want to send on any given day.)

The warming service will flood your inbox with messages sent by real email domains. The titles and content of these emails are usually silly in nature, but they serve a serious purpose: showing incoming and outgoing interactions. The platform creates emails with smart, dynamic content for you to send and receive.

Since the number one reason you’re using a warmup service is likely to improve your deliverability rate, the best platforms will also automatically retrieve your messages from spam folders and move them to the inbox. This helps ISPs recognize your domain as a valid, safe sender.

Benefits of Using an Email Warming Service

Before we get into the why of using a service, let’s take a moment to address why you should warm up your inbox in the first place.

Warming up your email:

• Helps maximize your chance of deliverability
• Prevents your beautifully crafted emails from ending up in the spam folder
• Keeps your IP and domain reputation high
• Enables you to fix any deliverability bugs before you launch high-volume campaigns

At this point, you’re probably thinking, “Well, I can send emails on my own. Why do I need to pay for a service to send emails for me?” We’re glad you asked.

First off, using a platform to take care of inbox warming saves you (or your interns) a lot of time. Running a warming campaign requires careful scaling of the number of emails you send, a diverse network of emails, and you’d have to stick to a pretty tight spreadsheet for your warming to be effective.

Additionally, the emails you send can’t be button-smashed nonsense. Google knows how to parse emails, and if they can’t understand what an email says, they’ll send it right to the spam folder.

Using a service allows you to send emails that pass Google’s quality checks and automatically knows how many emails to send in a day.

But the benefits of using a service go beyond manual data work. One of the most significant deliverability issues is accidentally ending up in a spam folder and either not knowing it or not being able to control whether it gets out of the spam folder.

A warming service will not only be able to realize that a message they sent on your behalf went into a spam folder, but they’ll be able to mark it as “not spam” and help internet service providers recognize you as a safe sender. The next time you send a message to that internet service provider, they’ll forward it directly to the inbox, which is exactly what you want.

The best warming services will also provide analytics that make sense and give you pointers on how to improve your deliverability. Think about all the time you can save by spending less time worrying about whether your emails will make it into inboxes and instead concentrate on creating the best emails you can send.

How Long to Warm Your Inbox when Using an Email Warming Service

The amount of time the warming process will take depends on your target email volume, but your service will provide you with a timeline for optimum success. Most of the time, it takes about 45 to 90 days for the warming process to ramp up before you can begin outreach.

Yes, that’s a long time, and we know you don’t want to wait that long. But remember, good things come to those that wait. While this seems like an obscene amount of time, the timeline is generated by a system that has significant practice warming up inboxes for maximum deliverability. It’s worth the wait because after a couple of months, you’ll have a stable, high deliverability rate.

Contrary to popular belief, you can’t wash your hands of email warming as soon as the first couple of months are over. You should be working (or having a service working) to keep your inbox warm for as long as you plan on using the domain for marketing outreach. This is especially crucial for businesses that plan to increase their total number of emails sent as they gain more subscribers.

The Negative Effects of Never Using an Email Warming Service

Without using an email warming service, you run the risk of lowering your deliverability rate. A low deliverability rate is like kissing revenue goodbye, and no one wants that.

Taking advantage of an email warming service spares you from having to warm your inbox yourself, which is a massive waste of time.

And you’ll have a much better chance of improving your deliverability if you use a warming service because you’ll have the tools you need and clear analytics to give you actionable tasks to enhance your delivery rate.

How an Email Warming Service Can Help Your Deliverability Health Score

The best email warming services don’t just send emails on your behalf (although that is a major part of it). They work to keep your deliverability rate as high as possible.

When choosing a warming service, you want to ensure that they have added features that keep your reputation in good standing.

For instance, some warming services will scan multiple blocklists every hour to make sure that your domain isn’t on any of them. Blocklists will immediately derail any marketing campaign and lead to junked or bounced emails.

Platforms with top-of-the-line analytics can warm your inbox and give you a direct measurement of your domain’s health. Your domain health is based on several factors, including the DNS settings of your domain, implementation of security protocols, your presence on any blocklists, and your overall reputation.

Warmup Inbox for Email Warming

Warmup Inbox has everything you need to get your inbox warm and keep it nice and cozy. Our automated platform sends and receives emails for you, so you can concentrate on other important aspects of your email marketing strategy.

We also provide a live performance tracker so you can monitor your deliverability efforts. If there’s anything out of the ordinary, we’ll help you figure it out and get it fixed.

Discover how Warmup Inbox can revamp your email marketing efforts today.

Originally published at https://blog.warmupinbox.com on September 23, 2021.

What Is DMARC?

Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC) is a DNS protocol that utilizes the Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM).

DMARC helps Internet Service Providers authenticate incoming and outgoing email messages originating from a specific domain. Verifying the validity of a message ensures that spam, spoofed, malicious, or illegitimate mail doesn’t make it into consumer inboxes.

DMARC functions as an extension of the two existing email authentication protocols. It enables a domain user to publicly publish a policy in their DNS records that specifies which protocols to implement when receiving a message. This record also indicates how the server should handle rejected or malicious messages, clarifying whether the message should be bounced back to the sender or redirected to another inbox for quarantine.

Authenticating your email with DMARC allows ISPs to verify that your email is sent by you rather than someone pretending to be you. DMARC uses SPF to validate that the message is coming from you and DKIM to confirm that it hasn’t been tampered with since it left your server.

DMARC also provides you with feedback that helps you understand why certain emails cannot be delivered so you can improve your sending practices.

Why Is It Important to Protect Your Domain Reputation?

Protecting your domain reputation is a critical part of email deliverability. The higher your reputation is, the more likely it is that ISPs will let your message through to their clients. So maintaining your reputation is pretty important if you want to make the most of your email campaigns.

There isn’t one single way to protect your domain reputation. Since your reputation is the sum of many parts, you have to juggle multiple components. The good news is that as long as you practice safe sending habits and good email etiquette, you should have no issues with keeping your reputation strong.

However, if your account is compromised, your reputation can pay the price. If a hacker starts sending out random emails with phishing links on your behalf, your domain can get placed on a blocklist.

How Does DMARC Help to Protect Your Reputation?

DMARC validates that a message is legitimately coming from you, protecting your reputation from being damaged by cybercriminals.

Whether the email you send is being sent to potential or to current subscribers, mass email campaigns can be a highly effective way to move people through your sales funnel. However, mass email marketing can come with problems if you don’t stay on top of your reputation. If your sender reputation is neglected, you could end up getting multiple spam reports and potentially have your domain placed on a blocklist.

Having a DMARC record for your domain lets ISPs know that you’re doing your part to ensure good sending habits. Publishing a DMARC record allows your domain to receive feedback about your email authentication so you can improve your email authentication with SPF and DKIM.

ISPs automatically trust DMARC-authenticated senders and are more likely to let messages from them through to the recipient. Since having a DMARC record shows that you’re putting in the effort to establish a secure domain that isn’t trying to harm the recipient, ISPs trained to weed out spam and malicious content will realize that you’re a safe sender.

In short, a DMARC record improves email deliverability by helping the recipient validate the security of the message. This way, you get more messages into people’s inboxes instead of their spam folders.

Of course, a DMARC record isn’t like having the Wizard of Oz grant you entry to inboxes or remove your domain removed from a blocklist. If that were the case, spammers would simply set up a DMARC record and call it a day. Your DMARC record is more like one of the steps on the Yellow Brick Road to a positive reputation and high deliverability. Every little bit you do to show that you’re working to keep consumers safe helps.

What Is the DMARC Policy?

A DMARC policy enables domain owners to show that their messages are protected through SPF and DKIM. The policy also informs the recipient what they should do if an incoming message doesn’t have these verifications attached. If an email arrives without authentication, then the receiving server will know whether to send it to the junk folder or bounce the message altogether.

You can set your DMARC policy with a couple of commands to tell servers how to handle unverified messages:

• Monitoring (p=none): Doesn’t have an impact on mail flow and sends feedback to the sender
• Quarantine (p=quarantine): messages that fail DMARC are moved to the spam folder
• Reject (p=reject): messages that fail DMARC are bounced back to the sender

For your email to be DMARC compliant, the domain the message is from must match the domain validated through SPF or the valid DKIM signature. Think of it as two-factor authentication for your emails.

As long as your email matches at least one of your SPF or DKIM registrations, then your message will be verified as legitimate.

Common DMARC Issues and How to Fix Them

Problems with your DMARC record can impact ISP’s ability to verify your domain address. Here are some of the most common issues and how to get them fixed

Problem: you left out the v=DMARC1 tag or typed in “v=dmarc1”

Solution: check your record and ensure that you have “v=DMARC1” entered at the beginning of the record exactly like that

Problem: you have missing or incorrect characters

Solution: check that your command was typed in correctly without any extra or missing characters (including spaces) that would throw off the command

Problem: you leave your record at p=none for an extended period of time

Solution: The p=none request puts your domain into monitoring mode. If you want to protect against spoofing, then you have to move the command to p=reject or p=quarantine.

Problem: you set a pct= tag at less than 100%

Solution: If you have p=quarantine and your percentage is less than 100, there’s a chance that some spoofed emails could slip through the cracks. By default, DMARC sets pct at 100, so there’s no need to add a pct tag if you haven’t added one yet. But if you do have one, move it back to pct=100.

Problem: you didn’t set different parameters for subdomains

Solution: Your default settings will automatically be applied to your subdomains. But you still have to bring your subdomains into DMARC enforcement by adding the tag “sp=none.” This will ensure that your subdomains can’t be spoofed.

Problem: you aren’t using the correct DMARC syntax

Solution: Check that your tags are in the right order. You can use an online application to make sure that everything is arranged to work as requested.

Problem: you didn’t specify a reporting address

Solution: add a “rua=” tag to let DMARC know where to send reports about messaging

Problem: your SPF or DKIM records aren’t configured correctly

Solution: check your SPF and DKIM registrations to make sure they’re correct and match the domain for your DMARC policy

Using Warmup Inbox to Protect Your Domain Reputation

Once you’re ready to go with DMARC, there are a variety of steps you can take to maintain a positive domain reputation. Our platform allows you to warm up your inbox, keep it warm, and monitor the health of your inbox. The best part? You don’t have to do anything.

Try it free today and discover what Warmup Inbox can do for you.

Originally published at https://blog.warmupinbox.com on August 31, 2021.

You could create the best emails ever to grace the eyes of your customers. But if those emails don’t even make it to your customers inbox, then all your hard work won’t matter.

Let’s look at some simple steps to improve your email deliverability with your domain.

Create a Custom Domain

If you’re running a business, it’s time to ditch the generalized domain name.

Your domain name is what comes after the “@” symbol on your email address. Your personal email account is likely managed by “@gmail.com,” “@outlook.com,” “@yahoo.com,” or something similar. Setting up a business account through your favorite mail provider is free, easy, and comes on a familiar platform. So why should you use a custom domain?

For starters, your business will look more professional with a custom domain. “ mybusiness@gmail.com” doesn’t make as strong of an impression as “ employee@mybusiness.com.” Your custom domain will show customers that you are a legitimate business, not a random scammer.

Additionally, having your own domain allows you to customize your brand image. A custom domain opens the door to subdomains, email authentication, custom envelope domains, and more. It also offers you the ability to maintain your domain reputation with ease.

Use Multiple Subdomains to Send Emails

As your business scales to send more emails, you may want to consider opening up a few subdomains to get out your target number of emails. Subdomains do not affect deliverability as long as you maintain a positive domain reputation.

You can use subdomains to segment the types of emails you send to your customers. For example, you can use subdomains like “@promotions.mybusiness.com” or “@updates.mybusiness.com” so Internet Service Providers know precisely what kind of content to expect from the subdomain.

Subdomains free up your primary domain by sending out marketing emails, so your primary domain can focus on customer interactions and sending order updates. If a subdomain handles your marketing efforts and ends up with some spam complaints, your primary domain reputation won’t suffer as a result.

Implement Email Authentication

Authenticating your email as a verified sender helps Internet Service Providers recognize you as a reliable sender. These authentications allow receiving servers to verify who you are quickly and catch any cybercriminal attempts to spoof your account.

Email authentication also shows that you prioritize your customers’ wellbeing and don’t want them to be flooded with spam. There are three parts to domain authentication, and it’s best to take the time to complete all three.

1. Sender Policy Framework (SPF) — A DNS record that allows you to specify authorized domains to send messages on your behalf
2. Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM) — A DNS record that adds an encryption to all of your outgoing messages that allows servers to verify that the content hasn’t been tampered with
3. Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC) — A DNS protocol that uses both SPF and DKIM to assist ISPs in validating the authenticity of a message.

Maintain a Good Domain Reputation

Maintaining a positive domain reputation is crucial to email deliverability. If your domain reputation falls below a certain threshold, all of the emails you send will be pushed directly to the spam folder. Too many spam complaints could get your domain placed on a blocklist, and that’s the last thing you want for your marketing campaigns.

Internet Service Providers are doing everything they can to protect their users from spam and malicious content, so if you have a less-than-stellar reputation, they’ll hesitate to file your message into customers’ inboxes.

Maintaining a positive domain reputation involves practicing good sending etiquette, including:

• Authenticating your emails as discussed in the previous section
• Limiting the number of spam reports you get from Internet Service Providers and consumers
• Providing an unsubscribe button
• Honoring unsubscribe requests
• Using double opt-in measures

Send High-Quality Emails

If you’re going to send your customers an email, make sure it’s an email worth reading.

Since your client gets numerous emails every day, your subject line needs to catch their attention right away. A good subject line can be the difference between an opened and unopened email. (But don’t use misleading subject lines.)

The “From” line should quickly identify your brand. For example, if you get an email from “Warmup Inbox” or “Sarah at Warmup Inbox,” you know the message is coming from us. And hopefully, you love our messages so much that you open them immediately. But if you get an email from “Sarah Jane,” you might open it to figure out who this person is, or you might delete it because you don’t know a Sarah Jane.

Recognition is everything in email marketing.

With emails, you don’t have to worry about integrating SEO keywords, so be creative and have fun with your copy. At the same time, don’t squeeze a novel into an email. Get to your point, have an explicit action for your customers to take, and maybe include some information about products or upcoming promotions.

Before you send, check that you aren’t using spammy words that might trigger a spam filter. There are multiple tools online that you can use to see how your message appears to an ISP. Spam filters are also hyper-conscious of large attachments and too many images/gifs.

You may also want to provide an HTML-only option. While you take a lot of time to craft visually pleasing email masterpieces, some recipients will have a filter that blocks images. Providing a text version of your copy can make it possible for people to engage with your content.

And last but not least, make sure all your emails are mobile-friendly. Many customers check their email from their phones, so they’ll likely delete your message if the formatting is off.

Monitor Your Send Volumes

If you have a brand new domain, you can’t immediately start sending out as many emails as you want. It’s essential that you warm up your domain before you reach your target sending amount.

Warming your domain takes about four to six weeks, but it’s so much better for your email campaigns in the long run to take the time to steadily ramp up the number of emails you send each day.

Once your inbox is warm, you have to keep it warm. Extensive periods of not sending emails followed by massive email blasts are huge red flags for ISPs. If you want to include significantly more emails to your subscriber list, be sure to warm your domain up to that number.

Keeping an eye on the number of emails you send each day can help you catch a hacker sending emails from your domain much sooner than you would without keeping tabs on your sent folder.

Use Warmup Inbox

Warmup Inbox is the best tool on the market for maintaining your domain. At its core, our platform warms up your inbox and keeps it warm for ongoing campaigns. But it’s so much more than that.

Our platform gives you a real-time tracker of your inbox health, so you know exactly how you’re doing. We monitor everything from your DNS settings, blocklists, and ISP reputations.

We guarantee that we can help you increase your deliverability rate and domain reputation. Try Warmup Inbox for free and discover what your email campaigns have been missing all along.

Originally published at https://blog.warmupinbox.com on August 31, 2021.