- April 2, 2018 -
You've witnessed (or been part of) this scene before...
Mom or dad is at the mall or the grocery store with Johnny in tow... and Johnny starts acting up. He wants something and has been told "No."
He tries again. "No." Again..."Sorry, no."
So Johnny throws a fit to try and wear his parent down. He's smart...and has learned the art of manipulation at a young age.
Most of the time, mom or dad are able to nip the whole thing in the bud...Johnny knows it's futile to press their luck and life goes on.
But it's those times when mom or dad are exhausted or in a hurry...and Johnny might be cranky.
It's the perfect storm.
And mom (or dad) says in desperation, "Johnny...if you scream/stomp/throw yourself down one more time, I'm going to have to [threat of choice.]"
Johnny somehow just knows he's got it in the bag...he doesn't listen and he wins lol
And you know what?
We do the same thing as marketers.
Perfect example:
Telling a lead who has opted to receive your blog post updates (or another type of regular communication) to check their inbox for a confirmation email...
And then when they don't confirm...you send it anyway.
You've just majorly wimped out.
Even worse...someone requests a freebie, they confirm their email, you send them what they asked for...and then take it upon yourself to email them about your offer, your new service, an upcoming event.
Invariably here's what happens in that scenario:
1) They don't open those promotion emails, and eventually their ISP determines to quit letting your emails clutter up their inbox.
2) Or...you catch them in a good mood and they nicely unsubscribe.
3) Or...they decide to teach you a lesson and report your emails as spam.
In any case, your sending reputation has just taken another hit.
If you're interested in reading what the industry considers best practice, this is an excellent resource.
In a nutshell, here's the lowdown:
Worst: Single opt-in and send them ongoing email messages.
Better: Single opt-in and you immediately send them a welcome email letting them know they're going to receive further messages from you.
BEST: Double opt-in and you don't send to them again if they don't confirm their email.
If you're going to market via email, keeping your list as clean and engaged as possible is just part of the price of doing business.
Every week, we get asked by Infusionsoft users if they should move from Infusionsoft to another platform to see if they can get better deliverability.
And we say the same thing over and over:
+ Your deliverability is mostly up to you, and I largely can't help you with it.
+ I can certainly tell you what you're doing wrong, and what to improve...but Infusionsoft can't make a badly written email to a purchased list get to the inbox any more than it can make a great email to engaged recipients go to the spam folder.
+ It's easy to want someone to blame when you're having poor deliverability, but the ESP (Email Service Provider, being Infusionsoft) is very rarely the issue.
+ If you're having issues with Infusionsoft and you don't change your mailing practices, you're likely to experience the same problems at a different ESP...and similarly I wouldn't tell someone to quit their current ESP to come to Infusionsoft to try to fix a deliverability problem.
I'd tell them to send better mail to engaged recipients.
And if they aren't engaging? Say bye bye.
Invite them to unsubscribe or do it yourself.
Tough love. Hard pruning.
But that's how you get better deliverability.
Our Engagement Maximizer suite of campaigns will help you from wimping out.
Check it out here: https://barronmarketingsolutions.com/engagement-maximizer
Talk soon,
[leadpages_leadbox leadbox_id=1475f1846639c5] [/leadpages_leadbox]
