In today’s digital age, email marketing stands as a cornerstone of business-to-business (B2B) outbound strategies. Email is crucial for contacting clients, sharing information, and building connections in various industries. It’s used by businesses selling directly to consumers, offering software services, and providing business-to-business services. But even though email is crucial, getting it into inboxes is hard, especially because Gmail often puts emails in spam.
Understanding the Gmail Updates
Google recently said they are making Gmail safer from spam, phishing and malware as well. This is important for large senders who send over 5,000 emails daily. The changes include verifying emails, adding a simple unsubscribe option, and limiting how many emails can be labeled as spam to prevent misuse.
Initially encompassing both personal Gmail and Google Workspace accounts, subsequent clarifications delineated that the 5,000-email-per-day cap pertains solely to personal accounts. However, for emails directed to addresses ending in “@gmail.com” in substantial volumes, adherence to the new regulations is imperative.
Adapting to the New Email Landscape
In light of these impending updates, businesses must proactively revise their email strategies to ensure compliance and safeguard their visibility in recipients’ inboxes. The following comprehensive guide delineates actionable steps for navigating Gmail’s new regulations:
Compliance with Legal Regulations
It is essential for businesses to familiarize themselves with and strictly follow pertinent email regulations such as the CAN-SPAM Act in the U.S. and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the E.U. These rules tell us how to send commercial emails and handle personal data. Following these rules helps businesses keep their audience’s trust, stay out of trouble and do the right thing in their email marketing.
Technical Setup
Making sure that your email infrastructure and authentication protocols such as SPF, DKIM and DMARC are strong is crucial to maintain the credibility of your domain. These rules ensure your emails are genuine and not flagged as spam. Setting up robust technical systems following these rules can boost your domain’s trustworthiness and improve email delivery.
Secondary Domain for Outreach
Thinking about using a secondary domain for reaching out to new contacts can help protect the reputation of your main domain. Using this plan can make your emails more likely to be delivered and lower the risks of aggressive marketing. By using a different domain for reaching out to new contacts, you can improve how often your emails get delivered and avoid hurting your main email efforts.
Building and Maintaining Sender Reputation
When sending emails, especially from a new domain or IP address, it is vital to build a positive reputation over time. This means gradually increasing the volume of emails you send while maintaining a low spam rate. To make sure your emails keep getting delivered, it is important to follow a plan. By slowly sending more emails and making sure they don’t get marked as spam, you can become a trusted sender.
Contact List Quality
It is important to prioritize using only business email addresses and regularly removing contacts that are no longer valid or inactive from your email lists. Keeping your contact list in good shape makes it more likely that your emails will be delivered and that people will engage with them. By making sure your list mostly has active and valid business email addresses, you can improve how often your emails get delivered and how well they perform. This leads to better email marketing campaigns overall.
Email Verification and List Hygiene
Regularly checking and removing invalid or inactive email addresses from your contact list, as well as taking out email addresses that bounce back, is crucial for keeping your list accurate and ensuring your emails reach their intended recipients. Regularly checking and cleaning your email list keeps your contacts in good shape and helps your emails get delivered.
Email Content Considerations
When creating emails, it is important to carefully choose the content you include. Avoid using words or phrases that are linked to spam because they can make email filters block your emails and reduce the chances of them landing in people’s inboxes. It is important to have a good mix of text and images in your emails. Emails with too many images and too little text may be flagged as spam by email filters. Making sure there is a good balance between text and images in your emails can help them get delivered better and make people more likely to open and click on them. It is important to think about these things to make your email marketing work better.
Throttling and Sending Schedule
By controlling how many emails you send and when you send them, you can avoid alarming email providers. This increases the chances of your emails being delivered and lowers the risk of them being labeled as spam. By choosing when and how many emails to send wisely, businesses can boost the chances of their emails landing in inboxes and steer clear of spam labels. This clever method of managing email volume and timing maintains a positive reputation for senders and enhances the effectiveness of email marketing.
Upside of Stricter Rules
Amidst the challenges posed by these stringent regulations, several potential benefits emerge. When businesses send fewer unwanted emails, they can expect more people to engage with their emails and have a better opinion of their brand. With less spam filling up inboxes, each email has a better chance of being noticed and sparking real conversations with recipients.
To sum up, because of Gmail’s new rules, businesses should update their email strategies. By following the rules closely and using the best methods, they can adapt to these changes smoothly and make sure their email marketing still works well.