Sending Emails: Best Practices
4 min read
In this article
- What should I avoid?
- What can I do to improve deliverability?
When emailing your Wix contacts, there are things you want to avoid and other measures you should take in order to maximize your deliverability and engagement rates.
What should I avoid?
Spam Traps, spam complaints, hard bounces and low engagement rates
- Spam Traps: These are fictitious email addresses or addresses that are no longer in use. Spam traps help ISPs and anti-spam organizations identify email marketers who are not following email distribution regulations. Click here to learn more about spam traps.
- Spam complaints: These occur when a recipient marks your email as spam or files a formal complaint (known as an abuse report) about your content. Click here to learn more about mailings marked as spam.
- Hard bounces: These occur when a permanent issue causes a recipient’s server to block your mail from being delivered to a specific address on your mailing list. Click here to learn more about bounced emails.
- Low engagement: This occurs when only few recipients open or click on links in your email. Having a low engagement rate sends a message to ISPs that users are either not receiving or not reading your emails. Click here to learn more about engagement rates.
Sending emails without recipient's consent
You can send emails to people in your recipients list that have given you written permission to send them emails. To keep your email delivery rates high, only send content to people you've been in touch with recently (within the past year). Avoid sending your mailings to the following recipients:
- Anyone who has never given you permission to email them.
- Anyone who asked to unsubscribe from your emails, or told you not to contact them.
- An email address you received from someone else or from another business.
- An email address you copied off the Internet.
- An email address that you purchased on a list.
- A email address you obtained via social media (e.g., Facebook).
- Someone who gave you their business card, but didn’t specifically ask to be on your mailing list.
- Someone who came to an event you planned but didn’t specifically ask to be on your mailing list
Prohibited content
Keep in mind that it is illegal to send, offer or sell certain types of content. We may block the distribution of your content if it includes any of the following:
- Pornography or illicitly pornographic products, content and/or services, such as adult magazines and videos or escort services.
- Content related to illegal substances or illegal goods of any kind.
- Writing that is libelous, defamatory, scandalous, threatening or harassing is any way.
- Products or services related to betting and gambling.
Suspicious content
While not outright illegal, certain content is considered suspicious and can lead to emails being marked as spam. Because of this, we may also decline distribution of your mailing if it includes content related to the following:
- Online and direct pharmaceutical sales
- Debt collection, credit repair, or products or services offering debt relief
- Offers related to working from home, getting rich quick, building your wealth, financial independence, etc.
- Content related to real estate, bitcoins or trading gold
What can I do to improve deliverability?
Create and maintain your mailing list
- Only send emails to recipients who have specifically signed up for your mailing list. (If you're not sure whether you have someone's permission to send them emails, write them a personal email and ask if they would like to receive your newsletters and updates).
- Send your mailings regularly, but not too often! If you bombard your contacts with too many newsletters, they’re likely to unsubscribe or mark your message as spam. We recommend sending out a maximum of 2-3 emails a week.
- Make sure that all of the email addresses in your mailing list are valid, and clean your list every six months. Before uploading a new list of contacts, use a tool such as BriteVerify to check that your recipient list is clean.
Write engaging subject lines for your newsletter
Subject lines have a significant impact on whether or not recipients open your newsletters. Here are some tips to follow:
- Write subject lines that encourage your recipients to open your email. Try to create a sense of urgency or pique their curiosity.
- Your subject line should relate to the content. Offer a hint about the topic so readers know what to expect.
- Avoid spammy words like “free,” “earn $,” “incredible deal” or “no gimmick.” They can send the message to both readers and spam filters that your email is spam.
- Don't use all capital letters or many exclamation points.
- Aim for 30 characters, max.
Clearly identify yourself and your business
- Send your mailings from a custom email address with a domain that matches your website. Click here to learn more.
- Always send emails from the same email address. This will help recipients identify your business and can boost your engagement rate.
- If you manage more than one site from your Wix account, use a different sender email for each site. Set a designated sender email address for each website and use it consistently whenever you send a an email.
- Never use email addresses which expire after a certain time period. This can cause your emails to be marked as spam.
- Stay true to your business’s branding. Use colors, fonts and language that match all of your marketing materials. This helps make it obvious to readers that your newsletter is legitimate and was really sent from your business.
- Put your logo, address (if you have one) and phone number in each newsletter. The footer can be a great place for these.
- Include links to your social media pages and blog.
Create interesting and relevant content
- We recommedt not to send emails that are only an image. Instead, make sure they have at least one sentence of text. (Note that an image with text in it does not qualify.)
- Be interesting and relevant.
- Get to the point. Most recipients will never read long letters and articles, so it’s best to keep your content short.
- Break up paragraphs of text with sub-headers. This helps readers skim your newsletter and quickly get the information they need.
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