Mass email marketing is commonly used to promote products, deliver information, and promote sales. No one questions the fact that properly coordinated mass email marketing works. However, despite having the most qualified opt-in lists and writing the best sales copy, one hurdle that often stands in the way of your email deliverability is the dreaded email blacklist.
Email Blacklists
Email blacklists are lists of IP addresses and/or domains that are considered to be sources of spam. Internet service providers verify incoming email against these lists and when a match is found, the email is denied deliverability. For marketers, this can be a nightmare. Especially when you consider that many email blacklists are poorly maintained, not up to date, and produce a high number of false positives for their mailings.
To ensure a higher email deliverability rate for mass email marketing a couple of steps should be taken prior to the launch of a campaign.
- Check against known blacklists. One such tool for this is to use the MX Toolbox website: http://www.mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx. You can enter your server IP and it will check against 147 of the more popular real time blacklists.
- Send a test email and review analytical data for bounce rates.
- Don’t make your emails look like spam.
If you find yourself blacklisted, contact the blacklist immediately so that you can get your organization delisted before you start your mass email marketing campaign.