With the ever changing and increasing spam filters these days, we have seen a few common mistakes that land emails in a junk folder. Here are our top ten tips to make sure that your clients are receiving all of your emails.
1. Use a custom domain email
A custom domain email (like hello@yourdomain.com) separates your brand from all of the free available email providers. Having emails to your clients come from your branded email can be one extra notch on the deliverability scale.
2. Set up DKIM and SPF
DKIM keys and SPF records increase the trustworthiness of your emails in the eyes of your client's inbox. Many email providers have this enabled by default, but if you’re seeing deliverability issues and have a custom domain email, this is a good place to start.
If you connected your email to Dubsado via SMTP, check out our article on setting up DKIM and SPF!
3. Write great subject lines (that don’t look spammy)
Subject lines can be a huge make it or break it point for deliverability. Try to not use words like sale, money, money symbols, anything in all caps. Try to make it as natural as possible.
New invoice from [brand name] for [project name] would be great, since it ties in your brand and pertinent information to the client. If you find you’re having a hard time getting through filters of certain email clients, jump to #7 and try doing that before reaching out to clients with job and money related info.
4. Avoid spam triggers
Certain types of email content can be red flags for email deliverability:
Inconsistent formatting (this is cleaned up through Dubsado)
Embedding videos
Opening emails with “Dear”
Using too many images or links
Using too little text (try to shoot for 2 paragraphs with about 50 words in each)
5. Ask your clients to add you to their address book
This step can help you successfully deliver to the client again, as well as, in the future as your email could get whitelisted for other client’s to see as well.
6. Ask new clients to add you to their Primary inbox
Don’t get lost and filtered into the promotions tab of your Gmail using clients. Make sure they move you over to their primary inbox where you belong!
7. Ask your clients to whitelist your email address
In most email accounts, you can create a rule or filter. Ask your clients to create a rule/filter to always send emails from your email address to their primary inbox, or to never send your emails to spam.
👋 Here's a tip... if one client whitelists you and accepts emails from you, other clients with the same email provider will be more likely to accept your emails, too. If the email provider offers free email accounts, you can even create your own free email with that provider, whitelist your Dubsado-connected email, and email yourself back and forth.
8. Send a welcome message
Welcome messages are a powerful first step in establishing a relationship with a new client. Instead of making the first time you reach out to someone be strictly business, send an email with a couple paragraphs introducing yourself and welcoming them to your business. Don’t include any links or images. Just a super short and sweet welcome message and don’t forget step #7.
9. Ask your client to reply to your email
A reply is the quickest way to get your email address whitelisted for your current and prospective clients. Have a little P.S. at the bottom asking for a quick reply, or ask a question they have to get back to and you’re sure to maximize deliverability to this client going forward.
10. Always include a plain-text version of your HTML email
Good news, Dubsado already takes care of this for you. Including the plain text version of your email tells email programs that there’s a message in this email worth reading, not just worth staring at.