Improve your email deliverability with these 7 tips
Email marketing is a valuable tool for any business looking to connect with their audience, and cannabis dispensaries are no exception. However, with the rise of email filters and spam traps, ensuring your emails make it to your customers’ inboxes can be a challenge. That’s why it’s crucial for dispensaries to focus on email deliverability – the ability for your emails to actually reach your intended audience.
In this blog post, we’ll discuss seven tips and tricks that dispensaries can use to improve their deliverability. From verifying ownership of your email messages to keeping your email lists clean and current, these tips will help you optimize your email campaigns and avoid the dreaded spam folder. By following these best practices, you can increase the likelihood that your emails will be delivered and read by your subscribers, resulting in higher engagement rates and ultimately, increased sales.
Send an engaging welcome email
Your welcome email is the first message a new subscriber receives from your dispensary, and it’s a crucial opportunity to make a good impression and begin building a relationship with your new customer. To create an engaging welcome email, start by personalizing your message and using the subscriber’s name and any other relevant information you have. Let your new subscriber know what they can expect from your emails, and be clear and concise about what they can expect to receive from your dispensary.
In addition to setting expectations, include a call-to-action (CTA) in your welcome email to encourage your new subscriber to take action. By doing so, your click through rates will increase. This could be anything from visiting your dispensary’s website to signing up for a loyalty program. Offering an incentive, such as a discount code or a free gift with purchase, can also help encourage your new subscriber to make their first purchase with your dispensary.
By creating an engaging welcome email, you can start building a positive relationship with your new subscriber and increase engagement and loyalty, ultimately driving sales for your dispensary.
Keep your email lists current and clean
Maintaining a clean and current email list is essential for email marketers to ensure a successful marketing campaign. A clean email list means that you only have active, engaged subscribers who want to receive your emails, while a current email list means that you have up-to-date information about your subscribers. Here are some tips for keeping your email lists current and clean:
- Regularly remove inactive subscribers: If a subscriber hasn’t engaged with your emails in a while, it’s best to remove them from your list. This not only helps keep your list clean but also ensures that you’re not wasting resources on subscribers who are no longer interested in your brand, and it can help you avoid unnecessary spam complaints.
- Use a double opt-in process: A double opt-in process, as opposed to a single opt in, requires subscribers to confirm their email address after signing up. This helps ensure that the email address is valid and that the subscriber is interested in receiving your emails.
- Keep your email lists segmented: Segmenting your email list allows you to send targeted messages to specific groups of subscribers based on their interests or behaviors. This helps ensure that your subscribers only receive relevant content, which can improve engagement and prevent unsubscribes.
- Use email validation tools: Email validation tools can help verify that the email addresses in your list are valid and accurate, and will help you avoid fake email addresses. This can help reduce bounced emails and ensure that your emails reach your customers’ inboxes.
Keeping your email lists current and clean takes time and effort, but it’s crucial for a successful campaign. By doing so, you can increase your email deliverability rates, raise engagement with your audience, and ultimately, drive sales for your dispensary.
Don’t use spam triggers, or you’ll end up in the spam folder
An email service provider can use a sophisticated algorithms to filter out spam emails from reaching their subscriber’s inbox. One of the factors that can trigger these algorithms is the use of certain spam trigger words in your email content. Spam triggers are commonly used by spammers and scammers to trick people into opening their emails, and they can hurt your email deliverability rates if you use them in your emails.
Here are some common trigger words to avoid in your email content:
- Free: While offering something for free can be an effective marketing strategy, using the word “free” too often can trigger spam filters.
- Urgent: Words like “urgent” or “act now” can create a sense of urgency, but they are often used by scammers to pressure people into taking action.
- Guaranteed: Using the word “guaranteed” can create unrealistic expectations and be seen as a red flag by email providers.
- Discount: While offering discounts can be a great way to incentivize sales, using the word “discount” too often can trigger spam filters.
By avoiding spam trigger words in your email content, you can improve upon your email deliverability rates, increase the chances of your emails reaching your customers’ inboxes, and reduce spam complaints. Instead, focus on using clear, concise language that accurately represents your brand and the value you provide to your subscribers.
Don’t embed forms in your emails
When it comes to marketing emails, it’s best to avoid embedding forms in your emails. While it may seem like a convenient way to gather information from your subscribers, it can actually harm your email deliverability rates. One of the biggest issues with embedded forms is that they increase the likelihood of your email being marked as spam. Email service providers like Gmail and Yahoo have filters that detect forms embedded in emails and flag them as suspicious, even if your email is not technically spam.
Another issue with embedded forms is that they can slow down the loading time of your email, which can cause your subscribers to become impatient and delete the email before even seeing the form. Instead, consider linking to a landing page where your subscribers can fill out the form. This not only avoids the issues with email filters and loading time, but it also provides a better user experience for your subscribers.
By directing them to a landing page, you can ensure that the form is optimized for the device they’re using and add additional information or context that may encourage them to fill out the form. Utilizing this method can lead to an incredible email campaign.
Use DKIM to verify ownership of an email message
Email authentication is a critical component of email deliverability. It’s important to verify that the email you send comes from a legitimate source and not a malicious sender. One way to authenticate your email messages is to use DKIM, which stands for DomainKeys Identified Mail. DKIM is a method for validating a domain name identity associated with a message through cryptographic authentication.
DKIM works by adding a digital signature to the email header. This signature includes information about the sender’s domain name and a cryptographic key that can be used to verify the signature. When an email is received, the recipient’s email server can use the key to verify the signature and ensure that the message was not tampered with during transmission.
Using DKIM to authenticate your email messages can help improve email deliverability rates. Many email providers, such as Gmail and Yahoo, use DKIM as a factor in determining whether to deliver an email to the recipient’s inbox or spam folder. By using DKIM, you can prove to these email providers that your emails are legitimate and not spam or phishing attempts.
Have people resubscribe when sending new campaigns
To maintain an engaged and interested subscriber list, it’s important to have people resubscribe when sending new campaigns. Over time, subscribers may lose interest in your emails or change their email addresses, and sending emails to inactive or unengaged subscribers can harm your email deliverability rates. Email providers may flag your emails as spam, which can hurt your overall email reputation and decrease your chances of reaching your customers’ inboxes.
To avoid this, periodically send re-engagement campaigns to email subscribers, asking them to confirm their interest in receiving your emails or offering an incentive to re-engage with your brand. If a subscriber does not respond or confirms that they no longer want to receive your emails, remove them from your list to avoid damaging your email reputation. Users will also remove themselves by clicking on the unsubscribe link in your email. By having people resubscribe when sending new campaigns, you can ensure that your email list is comprised of engaged and interested subscribers, leading to improved deliverability rates and ultimately driving sales for your dispensary.
Keep your formatting simple
Simplicity is key when it comes to email marketing. Keep your formatting clean and easy to read to improve the user experience and increase engagement with your emails. Use a clear subject line that accurately reflects the content of your email, one or two easy-to-read fonts, short paragraphs and bullet points, white space, and images sparingly. By following these guidelines, you can make your emails more visually appealing and improve their effectiveness in driving sales for your dispensary.
Whatever you do, don’t get blacklisted by email service providers!
To keep your email deliverability rates high, it’s crucial to keep your email lists current and clean. Over time, your list of subscribers may accumulate invalid or inactive email addresses, which can harm your email reputation and deliverability rates with your email provider.
Regularly cleaning your email list can help ensure that you’re only sending emails to engaged and interested subscribers, and will ultimately maximize email deliverability. Start by removing email addresses that have bounced back or returned as undeliverable. These addresses are likely no longer valid, so sending emails to them can lead to a poor sender reputation and put you on the radar of blacklist providers. You can also remove subscribers who have not opened or engaged with your emails in a while. While it’s important to try to re-engage with inactive subscribers, removing them from your list can help ensure that you’re not sending emails to uninterested or disengaged subscribers.
By keeping your email list current and clean, you can help maintain high deliverability rates and engagement with your audience. This can ultimately lead to increased sales and success for your dispensary’s email marketing campaigns.
Springbig’s email marketing tool
In conclusion, marketing by email can be a highly effective way to engage with your cannabis dispensary’s audience and drive sales. However, it’s essential to follow best practices to ensure that your emails are delivered to your subscribers’ inboxes and not marked as spam.
At Springbig, we are proud to offer a robust platform designed specifically for cannabis dispensaries. Our platform includes features like advanced segmentation, automation, and personalized messaging to help you connect with your audience in a meaningful way. Plus, we provide expert guidance and support to help you navigate the complex world of email deliverability and ensure that your campaigns are optimized for success.
By partnering with Springbig, you can trust that your email marketing efforts will be in good hands. We are dedicated to helping cannabis dispensaries of all sizes achieve their marketing goals through powerful, data-driven email campaigns. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help take your email marketing to the next level.
