Recently, we sat down with John Bollinger, Senior Director of Global Deliverability, Compliance and Email Operations at Maropost, a leading Email Service Provider, to learn about important best practices for getting relational and promotional emails delivered to customers' email inboxes.

Bollinger's expertise is in Email Deliverability, which is one of the most sought-after technical skills in the world of professional email marketing.

Sell with Email: What is "Deliverability" and why should marketers care about it?

Bollinger: It's the end-all-be-all in Email Marketing. It's the measure of what's actually delivered to the inbox. You'll hear a lot of others flaunt their great delivery rate of 99%+. But that only indicates what was sent and didn't bounce. Deliverability is a measure of what goes in to the inbox -- that's what really counts. Without good deliverability, you can have the best subscribers, the best campaigns, the best copy, do everything else right from a marketing position. But if you're not making it to the inbox and nobody sees it, all that stuff is not going to make any difference.

Sell with Email: You used the term, "bounce", which just means that the email was rejected by the receiving server, but you bring up a good point. Just because an email was accepted doesn't necessarily mean it made it to the inbox.
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Bollinger: Correct -- and that happens a lot more often if you're not doing the right thing.

Sell with Email: What are some of the things that are red flags for spam that most marketers aren't aware of?

Bollinger: Over the past 15 years, things have changed quite a bit. Back in the day, in the early days, content was a big factor in what would be considered red flags for spam. It still is to a certain extent, but lesser so than it was in the past. From an ISP's (Internet Service Provider e.g. Google, Yahoo!, AOL, etc.) perspective what is and what is not spam is somewhat subjective. They all have their own unique filtering, or characteristics, for what they might consider spam to be. But technically spam is any email that was received that was not specifically requested in the eyes of the subscriber and the ISPs.
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Reds flags that might have you be considered as a spammer are things like high bounce rates, high complaint rates, low open rates -- things like that. The main thing is maintaining a good reputation by doing the right things. A great starting point for most marketers who are already mailing is to see how many subscribers have not opened any email at least once in the last 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, and more. Then divide that number by the number of subscribers you send to on a regular basis. If that percentage is high --and I consider "high" to be over 20 to 25% -- then that is a big red flag for the ISPs and your emails will generally end up in the junk folder or perhaps even blocked all together.

Sell with Email: What are the 3 most important actions that marketers need to take in order to have a good reputation in the ISP's eyes? Anything that may not necessarily be obvious, but is important nevertheless?

Bollinger: If you're continuing to send to people who are not wanting your emails more so than you are to people who do want it, that's going to hurt your reputation overall. The chances are much higher that the people who have not engaged are ultimately going to mark your emails as spam.

The next thing that is important is the relevancy of our emails -- sending the information that was requested. The more relevant you can be to each of your subscribers through segmentation, by those who have opened an email by particular subject line can be helpful.

Another area that can be important is timing. Sending to your subscribers based on their schedule like when they last opened an email, or based on their time zone. Timing can also mean how often you are sending email to that subscriber. A preference center where subscribers can indicate what type of email they want to receive and how often they want to receive it can be a great tool to increase relevancy. Overmailing or undermailing can be an inssue from a deliverability standpoint, so you want to find that sweetspot.

Sell with Email: You talked about overmailing, which I hear a lot of among the clients that Sell with Email works with. But undermailing - that may be a topic that many marketers may not be aware of.

Bollinger: In certain circumstances, based on feedback from your subscribers, might be those that you want to send more emails. There isn't a one-size-fits-all. It depends upon your particular niche you're working with. Most important is the feedback through data you're getting from your subscribers.

Sell with Email: Is there a recommended frequency of mailing? Is once a month enough? Do you recommend your clients at Maropost to mail more frequently than that? What are some guidelines you can provide?
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Bollinger: Again, it's not a once-size-fits-all. I would think that once a month, even twice a month is probably not enough. I'm looking at it from a deliverability perspective. The ISPs give you a reputation score, kind of like a credit score, that is unique for each ISP. They need to see a consistent pattern of mailing in order to make that determination, so once or twice a month is probably not enough. Once a week at a minimum would be where you want to sit. But it depends upon your particular audience. Most of our subscribers (at Maropost) will mail two or three times a week. Some mail every day.

Sell with Email: What are the 3 things that you always advise any client who is new to email marketing and wants to get started right away?

Bollinger: Most importantly, do it right from the start. Only send to those people who have signed up for your emails. Don't buy a list -- ever. Sometimes that's a shortcut that new marketers will do. They'll say, "Well I don't have many people to mail to, so I'll just go get a list and mail a whole bunch of people." I always look at that like a print-mail marketing mindset where a print-mail marketer can send out a whole bunch of mail and the more they send out, that 1 to 2% return they are going to get, is going to pay off. But the difference between that and email marketing is that the ISPs are different than the physical mail carrier. The physical mail carrier doesn't look at each piece of mail and say, "Hey -- I'm not going to put this in the mail box today because I think this person is receiving too much junk mail." But the ISPs will do that.

Also I think maintaining your lists, making sure you keep your good reputation going forward. Make sure you're removing and not mailing to people who have not had any interest in a period of time.
Make it relevant -- have good copy, make the timing right, and dynamic content. Things like that are going to be relevant for the audience you are sending to.

Starting the right way and continuing the right way will definitely pay off in the long run. It might seem slow at first, but you can't really cut corners. Reputation is a funny thing. It's neutral to start with, where the ISPs are looking at you determining if you're a legitimate marketer. If they determine you are, and you keep doing the right things, they will keep you there. But if you go bad, it's very hard to dig yourself out of that hole.

Sell with Email: It sounds like, encourgaging people to opt-out of your list is not a bad thing.
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Bollinger: Yes, absolutely. In fact, one of the best practices is having a prominent unsubscribe link at the top of your emails. It's counterintuitive to marketers. But you don't want people who don't want your email. If they don't have an easy way to get out of them, then a very easy way is for them to click on the spam button, which is what you don't want.

Sell with Email: What are the best recommendations you have for growing an email list?

Bollinger: Growing a list is a little it outside my wheelhouse. I generally deal with issues once you're mailing. But I can tell you what NOT to do.

We mentioned before --don't buy or rent a list -- ever. You want to grow your list organically. Your focus shouldn't be on the size of the list, but rather on the quality of the list. It's going to change over time. At first somebody may have been engaged and happy and then they haven't opened a single email in 30, 60, 90 days. So they shouldn't be receiving any more emails. The likelyhood they are going to be buying anything from you is going to pretty slim. It ultimately affects your reputation and affects what actually goes into the inbox.

Don't share your list. ISPs will know if you are doing that. You may end up getting blocked.

Don't add someone to your regular mailing just because they bought something. Ask them first. Don't just assume a buyer that didn't sign up for email necessarily wants to receive everything you're sending.

Same thing if you're at an event or tradeshow and you get a business card from somebody. Make sure they are aware they are going to be getting emails from you.

Don't add subscribers to multiple lists. If you have multiple products you're selling in different categories, don't add them to a list that is in a category different from the one they agreed to.

Don't pull addresses from the web or scrape them from social media.

Sell with Email: Anything in conclusion?
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Bollinger: Do it right from the start. Grow your list organically. Don't worry if it's going slow to start with. If you do it too quickly, you'll get yourself in the doghouse. Keep relevancy as high as possible so people are staying interested and continuing to open.