Email marketing is one of the most cost-effective things you can do to grow your business. The more you can learn about the right way to do things (best practices), the more likely you are to be successful. Understanding safelists is a good place to start.
After all the hard work you put into creating a strong email marketing effort, you want to be sure that your email doesn’t end up in the recipient’s spam folder. That’s where an email safelist comes in.
What is an email safelist?
An email safelist is a list of approved or safe email addresses.
All too often emails are blocked or filtered by the user’s email program. When this happens, your carefully crafted email ends up in the recipient’s Spam folder. There are many reasons why this can happen—too many to list here—but one way to avoid it is to ask the people on your list to add you to their safelist.
Your goal for each email should be:
- For the email to arrive in their inbox
- For the recipient to open the email
- For the recipient to take a specific action
Ask your subscribers to safelist your email address
Many email users don’t understand that what they do can affect which emails they see and which emails end up in their Spam folder. For this reason, we recommend actively asking the people on your list to add your sender details to their address book or contacts and to their safe senders list if their email program or service has one.
First, set up a welcome email that includes the white list request.
Most bulk email programs (MailChimp, SendinBlue, Constant Contact, etc) make it easy to send an automatic email whenever someone signs up for your list. This is important because studies show that this is when recipients are most engaged. (According to CampaignMonitor.com, the open rate for welcome emails is 86% higher than a standard bulk email.) Use this welcome email to request that recipients add your sender address to their safelist.
Continue to ask, softly
There is no way for you to know when someone adds your sender address to their safelist. Therefore, it makes sense to continue to ask, but softly. Consider adding to the bottom of all your emails “To keep receiving emails from us, please add us to your address book.”
The benefits of getting subscribers to safelist your address
When a subscriber adds your sender address to their safelist it will increase the chances that your email will end up in their inbox and not their Spam folder. In addition, getting subscribers to safelist your emails can improve your sender reputation. This can increase deliverability and engagement across the board.
Need help setting up a bulk email account? Contact us. We can also help you create or import a list, develop an email marketing plan or design a new template. Learn more about our email marketing services.