Summary
Explaining email deliverability to non-technical audiences, like legal professionals, involves using relatable analogies such as physical mail, pizza delivery, credit scores, and driving records. The central idea is to ensure emails reach the intended inbox, bypassing spam filters. Crucial elements include maintaining a positive sender reputation, implementing proper email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), creating engaging and relevant content, practicing good list hygiene, warming up new IPs gradually, segmenting audiences effectively, and avoiding spam traps. These measures help establish trust with ISPs and ensure emails are viewed as legitimate and valuable.
Key findings
- Analogies are Key: Relatable analogies (postal service, pizza, credit score) make complex concepts understandable.
- Sender Reputation Matters: A strong sender reputation, like a good credit score, is vital for deliverability.
- Authentication is Essential: Proper email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) verifies email legitimacy.
- Content Drives Engagement: Engaging and relevant content helps avoid spam filters.
- List Hygiene is Crucial: Maintaining a clean email list improves deliverability.
- IP Warm-up is Important: Gradually warming up new IPs builds a good sender reputation.
- Segmentation Enhances Relevance: Segmenting audiences ensures more relevant email content.
- Spam Traps Must Be Avoided: Hitting spam traps severely damages sender reputation and deliverability.
Key considerations
- Audience Understanding: Tailor explanations to the audience's level of technical knowledge.
- Proactive Measures: Emphasize proactive steps to build and maintain a positive reputation.
- Illustrate Consequences: Clearly explain the consequences of poor deliverability practices.
- Simplified Terms: Use simple and non-technical language to define important terms.
- Regular Monitoring: Stress the importance of regularly monitoring deliverability metrics.
What email marketers say
10 marketer opinions
Explaining email deliverability to non-technical audiences like legal professionals can be achieved by using relatable analogies such as comparing it to physical mail, pizza delivery, or a credit score. The core concept revolves around ensuring emails reach the intended inbox rather than the spam folder. Key factors influencing deliverability include sender reputation, email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), engaging content, clean email lists, IP warm-up, and audience segmentation.
Key opinions
- Analogies: Using real-world analogies (postal service, pizza delivery, credit score) helps non-technical audiences grasp the concept of email deliverability.
- Sender Reputation: A good sender reputation is crucial, similar to a credit score, as it determines whether ISPs trust your emails.
- Email Authentication: Implementing email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) is like providing a verifiable return address, confirming the email's legitimacy.
- Content Quality: Engaging and relevant content is essential to avoid being marked as spam and to encourage recipients to open and interact with your emails.
- List Hygiene: Maintaining a clean email list by removing inactive or invalid addresses improves deliverability and sender reputation.
- IP Warm-up: Gradually increasing the volume of emails sent from a new IP address establishes a good sender reputation with ISPs.
- Segmentation: Sending highly relevant emails to segmented audiences helps improve the chances of them not being flagged as spam.
Key considerations
- Audience Knowledge: Tailor the explanation to the audience's existing knowledge and avoid technical jargon.
- Spam Filters: Emphasize the role of spam filters in deciding which emails reach the inbox and how to avoid triggering them.
- Engagement Metrics: Highlight the importance of engagement metrics (open rates, click-through rates) in demonstrating email value and improving deliverability.
- Spam Traps: Avoid spam traps as they are addresses used to catch out spammers.
Marketer view
Email marketer from StackExchange explains that maintaining a clean email list is crucial for deliverability. Remove inactive or invalid addresses to reduce bounce rates and improve your sender reputation. It's like weeding a garden to help the healthy plants thrive.
17 Sep 2021 - StackExchange
Marketer view
Marketer from Email Geeks shares an analogy of comparing email deliverability to physical post, explaining how sender and receiver addresses work and how you can fake the sender address, thus if the recipient knows the sender, they are more likely to open. This simplifies the concept without diving into servers or protocols.
2 Sep 2022 - Email Geeks
What the experts say
2 expert opinions
Explaining email deliverability simply to non-technical audiences, particularly legal professionals, can be effectively done by using relatable metaphors such as credit scores or driving records to illustrate sender reputation. It is also important to avoid spam traps as they negatively impact email deliverability.
Key opinions
- Sender Reputation Metaphors: Using real-world metaphors like credit scores or driving records helps non-technical audiences understand sender reputation's importance.
- Spam Traps: Avoiding spam traps is crucial for maintaining good email deliverability.
Key considerations
- Audience Relevance: Ensure the metaphors and explanations resonate with the specific audience, such as legal professionals.
- Proactive Measures: Highlight proactive measures to build and maintain a positive sender reputation.
- Spam Trap Awareness: Educate on what spam traps are and how to prevent landing on them.
Expert view
Expert from Word to the Wise explains that sender reputation can be explained using real-world metaphors like credit scores or driving records. A good sender reputation is essential for email deliverability, similar to how a good credit score is essential for getting a loan.
30 Dec 2024 - Word to the Wise
Expert view
Expert from SpamResource explains that spam traps are email addresses that are used to catch spammers. Avoid hitting spam traps to improve deliverability.
13 Sep 2022 - SpamResource
What the documentation says
4 technical articles
Explaining email deliverability to non-technical audiences like legal professionals involves simplifying complex technical aspects like email authentication and IP reputation. Email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) is presented as providing a verifiable return address or a tamper-proof seal, ensuring emails are genuinely from the stated sender. Maintaining a clean IP address reputation is crucial, likened to a postal code's history, impacting whether emails are flagged as spam. SPF records act as a list of authorized senders, verifying the email's origin and preventing spoofing.
Key findings
- Email Authentication: Proper email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) is essential for verifying email legitimacy and preventing spoofing.
- IP Reputation: Maintaining a clean IP address reputation is crucial for avoiding spam filters.
- SPF Records: SPF records authorize sending sources, enhancing email verification.
- DKIM Signatures: DKIM provides a digital signature ensuring the email wasn't altered.
Key considerations
- Simplified Explanations: Use analogies and simplified explanations to make complex technical concepts understandable to non-technical audiences.
- Sender Verification: Emphasize the importance of verifying the sender's identity to build trust with receiving mail servers.
- Proactive Maintenance: Highlight the need for proactive monitoring and maintenance of IP reputation to ensure consistent deliverability.
Technical article
Documentation from AWS explains that DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) is a way to digitally sign your emails. This signature proves that the email wasn't altered during transit and verifies that it came from the stated sender. Think of it as a tamper-proof seal on a package.
9 Mar 2023 - AWS Documentation
Technical article
Documentation from Microsoft Docs explains that maintaining a clean IP address reputation is crucial for email deliverability. Think of your IP address as your postal code; if previous senders from that IP sent spam, your emails may be flagged. Monitoring and promptly addressing any issues associated with your IP's reputation are key to ensuring good deliverability.
24 Sep 2022 - Microsoft Docs
How can I effectively avoid spam filters when sending emails?
How can you improve a bad domain reputation for email sending?
How do SPF, DKIM, and DMARC email authentication standards work?
How does DMARC impact email deliverability, and what are the pros and cons of using it?
What are best practices and costs for implementing DKIM, SPF, and DMARC?
What are some poor sending practices to avoid that can cause issues with email deliverability?
What are SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, and when are they needed?
What are the best resources for learning about email deliverability basics?
