What's next? That's a question that is asked often on my favorite television show of all time, The West Wing. The President of the United States, Jed Bartlet who was played by Martin Sheen, often ends conversations by asking “What's next?” This is a good question to ask in general and I think it's coming at a very appropriate time for email marketing, and especially and more personally for me on the deliverability side of the house.
As we approach the holiday season once again, I fear that not enough people are asking what's next in an actionable way. Most marketers haven't even realized how far deliverability has come. They are still trying to find a single reputation score that magically encompasses everything they need to know about deliverability in a single glance, or they may be a little more advanced and be thinking about engagement as an important deliverability factor.
We're still talking to those senders who think there is a magic pathway to the inbox, where you don't have to do any special work beyond signing up for a service. There's still no shortcut to the inbox, if you were wondering. Inbox placement isn't for sale, you can't add it to your domain name system (DNS), and there isn't anyone who is so connected that they can make a call, and make all your troubles vanish.
Ssshhh… It's a secret.
There is a little secret that those of us in the know have been aware of for some time. I am excited to see that a lot of you out there also see what's happening. We're in one of those transitional periods in deliverability that we see every few years. The surprise is this time, the secret to great inbox placement isn't some new deliverability concept. Good marketing leads to good inbox placement.
That's the secret.
I know it isn't that exciting to say, except for the fact that it actually is very exciting. Good marketers are winning the day, and we see it more and more each day. You want to see the inbox in Gmail? The way to get there is to do some amazing marketing. That's what puts you in that position, not tricks and shortcuts.
That's why this is an exciting time for us in the deliverability space. We know how to configure our systems to give you the best opportunity to get to the inbox. We know how to throttle, how to authenticate, which metrics to watch, and what time of day to send. All of that is already in place for you, the missing piece is the connection between you and your customer. Don't forget that as you plan for the holidays.
Appetite Recognition
It isn't about how many times you can touch a customer per week, it isn't about meeting a send quota for the quarter. Smart and successful marketers this holiday season will be the ones who recognize their customer's appetites for their products. It's just fine to send some great promotional deals, but it has to be mixed in with content that people want to read.
Next time, I am going to talk about how those same smart marketers are using new tools to not only understand how they are performing, but they are borrowing ideas about what does and does not work. All the information that you need to be successful is there for you today, and as always it isn't activated by a magic wand. The information is there for you if you want to see it.
As always, we are here to answer your questions and provide you with the path to those solutions.
You're not alone. We understand how critical (and even daunting) of a task it is to get email into an inbox. With these challenges in mind, we are giving you the opportunity to learn from our experience. Download the Email Deliverability: Guide for Modern Marketers to achieve email deliverability that really matters.
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