Heya! You've landed on the internet business blog of Angela Wills. I blog about solopreneur-ism, small business, affiliate marketing and more! 
Why Aren’t People Getting My Emails??
Are you worried people are not getting your emails?
I’ve set up a lot of online shopping carts and email marketing systems for clients and I often get the question: “People say they’re not getting my emails – Why Not?”
The first thing I like to make sure my clients understand is that we can’t control who gets our emails, we can only do our best to follow the rules and laws (aka Can-Spam Law) to make sure we get the best chance of having our emails delivered.
Yes, when you send out a personal email to your friend Joe it gets there just about every time – but setting up a mass mailing system and sending out emails in bulk is different, very different.
You see, when you send out mass email messages through a system you have to pass a set of rules and regulations. It doesn’t just go through because you say so. The reason it is this way is because of the spammers, the people who seriously abuse the system and of course the honest people have to pay by bending to prove they are not spammers.
Where Does Your Email Go?
Here’s a simple description of what happens when you have an email scheduled to go out through a program like 1ShoppingCart or Aweber.
- The email is usually given a potential spam rating and sent out into cyberspace.
- The email arrives at the email pick up portal (just made that up) out there in cyberspace. Now the pick up portal will be different depending on where someone’s email comes in. Many people use free email accounts these days so the pick up portal could be gmail, yahoo, hotmail, or a host of others. Each one sorts through the mail differently and they make a decision as to what gets:
a) chucked in the garbage, never to be seen by the recipient
b) sent to the ’spam’ folder
c) sent directly to the inbox
You can’t control the pick up portal. Once it gets there, the delivery is beyond your control.
What can you do to make sure the emails get there?
My clients ask me this question and I have a hard time responding because it’s not just one thing.
1. Make sure your spam rating is low. Most good systems will have a check that you can use to make sure you are not using overly ’spammy’ words or phrases that will trigger the filters and make your email ‘poof’ into thin air! Use this to make sure all your messages get through.
2. Use a system that has good relationships with the email hosts. I personally highly recommend Aweber if you just need an email service provider, and 1ShoppingCart is a good program if you need an autoresponder plus shopping cart plus affiliate program.
3. Don’t send from a free email! First off, it just looks unprofessional to be sending a business email from you@hotmail.com. It also isn’t a good idea because spammers use free emails and using one yourself gives you a ‘check’ on the list of potential things a spammer does and puts your email one step closer to the garbage ‘poof’ vanished category.
4. Give people very clear directions. If you have a double opt-in system make sure people know this and they know they need to open up an email (give the subjectline even) and click to receive email from you. Aweber is so awesome they have an automatic thank you page that tells your subscribers this, most programs don’t.
5. Tell your people to avoid Yahoo. I haven’t checked into this lately but not too long ago Yahoo was terrible for letting autoresponder messages come through.
6. Let it go. Here’s the thing. Everything I mention here and more is a lot of work. Is it worth it? That’s up to you. I prefer to do everything I can to get my emails delivered, and then I will answer any individual issues as they arise. If someone isn’t getting your email and they really want to, they’ll let you know. Then you can troubleshoot the situation and figure out why you’re not getting through to them.
Technology isn’t perfect and you can’t expect it to work like a well oiled machine, it just doesn’t yet. Remember the internet is a baby, just learning to take it’s first steps and you’re on the cutting edge and doing what the majority of businesses don’t know how to do yet so sometimes you just have patience and let it go.
p.s. If you want to learn more about email marketing and getting stuff delivered I highly recommend you read the blog at Aweber. It’s an excellent source of free, quality info on how to build your business sending out emails.
