Email marketing remains the most powerful tool for B2B correspondence. With the right strategies and smart execution, you can connect with patrons, reach potential customers, and convince new clients to buy from you again.
However, businesses still struggle to reach their intended recipients for several reasons. The most prominent factor is low deliverability. Email deliverability problems result from poor sender reputation, which can be solved with proper list hygiene.
In this article, we explore the fundamentals of contact list hygiene, identify its impact on email deliverability, and study the most effective strategies for improving your email deliverability score.
The Role of List Optimization in Email B2B Deliverability
Before studying the impact of list optimization on email deliverability, you must understand the concept of email list hygiene. At its core, list hygiene involves updating contact lists to remove invalid email addresses, fake email addresses, and other bad actors.
Email service providers set up spam filters to monitor inbound emails and flag malicious content. Messages containing spam trigger words or from senders with a low IP and domain reputation are diverted to recipients’ spam folders instead of the inbox.
Email optimization can remove invalid contacts from email lists, reducing bounce rates and ensuring your marketing messages reach the intended recipient. Scrubbing is essential to list hygiene and must be performed every three to six months for maximum email deliverability.
How to Optimize Email Lists for B2B Marketing Campaigns
Maintaining email list hygiene has a positive impact on B2B email deliverability. Here are some tips for cleaning your email lists:
Use Double Opt-in forms
Double opt-in forms allow subscribers to consent to receiving your marketing emails. While adding a friction point might seem counterproductive initially, it keeps your email lists clean by limiting the number of spam traps, bots, and typos.
Simplify Unsubscribing
Placing the unsubscribe link conveniently allows uninterested subscribers to remove themselves from your email list. This saves you the trouble of identifying disengaged subscribers and manually removing them from your contact list.
Segregate Subscribers and Send Targeted Content
Your subscribers don’t all expect the same thing from you. Identify their requirements, create targeted lists, and send personalized content they appreciate. You can also run a re-engagement email campaign to win back uninterested subscribers.
Automate Email Validation
Identifying and removing invalid addresses manually is quite slow and ineffective. Therefore, automated email validation is essential for maintaining email list hygiene. Alfred, by Email Industries, is an all-in-one email verification and threat detection tool trusted by the world’s top email senders and vendors. You can click here to receive 250 free credits.
Authenticate Your Domain and IP Address
Email authentication lets the recipient’s mail server know you are a legitimate sender. To help email providers validate your identity, add authentication protocols like DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) and Sender Policy Framework (SPF) to your domain’s DNS settings.
Use Automation Workflows
Set up autonomous workflows that identify and move inactive subscribers to a new email list and trigger a preset re-engagement email campaign. This keeps your primary list free from inactive users and increases your chances of winning back unengaged users.
5 Benefits of Email List Optimization
Here are the key benefits of optimizing contact lists for B2B email deliverability:
Reach the Recipient’s Inbox Instead of the Spam Folder
Inbox placement is the primary goal of email marketing campaigns. However, a low deliverability score sends your emails to the spam folder. This affects your sender reputation, eventually leading to mailbox providers blocklisting your sending domain. That’s the final nail in the coffin for your email campaigns.
Scrubbing your email lists regularly increases open, engagement, and click-through rates, signaling to inbox providers that you’re a legitimate sender. Therefore, your emails are delivered to the inbox instead of the spam folder.
Increase Email Engagement and Conversion Rates
Segregating email lists based on subscribers’ interests and preferences is essential for sending relevant content. Bombarding subscribers with information they didn’t ask for or aren’t interested in will eventually increase the unsubscribe rate.
Email list optimization helps businesses target customers with personalized products, services, offers, and promotions. You can personalize the subject line, visual elements, and entire email copy to increase engagement and conversion rates, especially in B2B applications.
Reduce Spam Complaints and Bounce Rates
Email list optimization lowers bounce rates by removing invalid addresses from subscriber lists. Typos, spam traps, and fake email addresses cause soft and hard bounces. If your bounce rate exceeds 5%, you will notice an immediate drop in email deliverability.
Sending relevant information at the right time keeps the target audience interested in your emails, reducing spam reports. Therefore, optimizing email lists can help you maintain a good sender reputation.
Get Higher Returns on the Same Marketing Budget
An email service provider charges for the total number of messages sent. This includes the size of your email list and sending volume. Each email sent to inactive contacts, invalid addresses, spam traps, etc., costs money.
Scrubbing your email lists frequently can help remove unengaged and inactive subscribers, optimize your marketing budget, and secure greater ROI.
Improve Your Sender Reputation
A positive sender reputation is crucial for maintaining high email deliverability. Poor sender scores deliver emails to the spam folder, eventually marking your domain on mail servers’ blocklists. Domain reputation reflects your business and must be protected at all costs.
A poor domain reputation affects marketing emails and essential business communications. Clean your email lists frequently to prevent your business correspondences from landing in recipients’ spam folders.
Supercharge Your B2B Email Marketing Campaigns with Expert Guidance
An updated contact list is essential for meeting subscribers in the inbox. A clean email list keeps your messages out of the spam folder and improves performance metrics such as click-through rates.
Deliverability is one of the most challenging and technical aspects of email marketing. However, it gets easier when you work with the experts. Book a discovery call today and learn how our team can boost your B2B email campaigns.
Marketing at Email Industries