The goal of any business-to-business organization is that clients do business with their help. One of the paths to that goal is eliciting interest from the clients to do business with the organization. Email marketing can be a highly effective and primary means to achieve that objective. With more than 4 billion global users in 2020, email marketing is still king, and organizations leave no stone unturned to leverage it along with email security.
It is essential to understand that deliverability is what matters for SaaS business emails in the long run more than delivery. Successful deliverability is equal to successful marketing, and it is all about inbox placement, as 85% of all emails fall under the ‘spam’ category. Email deliverability acts as a catalyst in acquiring and retaining clients. Email service providers can ensure email deliverability, but one must ensure that besides offering robust email deliverability, the service provider also provides email security and crucial add-ons such as email hosting, email forwarding, and email archiving.
Struggling With Poor Email Deliverability? Here’s Why!
The following could be the reasons why a SaaS organization struggles with email deliverability.
- No Email Authentication: Email authentication protects the domain from phishing attacks, such as spear phishing and spoofing, enabling ISPs to ensure the legitimacy of the sender. Without authentication, ISPs filter and block emails due to the lack of a strong domain reputation.
- High Complaint Rate: One of the most significant factors behind poor email deliverability is a high complaint rate. Complaints indicate that the sender does something wrong, and the receiver has decided to inform the sender about it. A complaint rate higher than 0.1% is considered high and can result in poor email deliverability for SaaS businesses.
- High Bounce Rate: The bounce rate signifies the percentage of addresses the email has failed to reach. It happens due to wrong email addresses, full mailboxes, and recipients with auto-reply messages. High bounce rates affect the sender’s reputation. A bounce rate higher than 5% should be concerning for SaaS businesses as they can result in the emails landing in the spam folder or getting blocked.
- Low Engagement: Subscribers must click on or open emails from the sender. If the emails are not opened, the ISPs receive signals that the sender does not follow best practices. These signals lead to emails landing in the spam folder. Many inactive contacts on the mailing list can be a reason for low engagement. Low engagement may also mean that the sender does not have a consistent schedule and engages in a haphazard emailing activity.
- Frequent Campaigns: On the flip side, too many emails can burn the subscriber list and kill revenue. A high frequency of emails will result in receivers marking emails as spam, directly resulting in poor email deliverability. Furthermore, an overwhelming number of emails within a short period may also result in receivers unsubscribing from the campaign or the emails.
What Can A SaaS Business Do For Improving Email Deliverability?
Like any other business, a SaaS business must follow certain practices to ensure email deliverability to help its marketing campaigns. Various factors, such as the ones listed below, improve email deliverability.
Build Sender Reputation
One of the major reasons for low email deliverability is a low sender score. The ISP automatically rejects any emails that fall below a specific score as a part of email security. A good sender reputation will boost the chances of landing emails straight to inboxes. However, building it takes time. Some of the keys to developing sender reputation or increasing sender score are sending consistent emails and ensuring that the content of the email is rich in quality. A higher number of clicks opens, and constant feedback loops are essential components leading to a good reputation for the sender.
Authenticate Sending Domains
Authentication is not the only way to solve poor deliverability. However, email authentication along with steps for building sender reputation will reap immense benefits for SaaS businesses. Authentication solidifies the sender’s reputation to protect domains from malicious activities, such as spear phishing, to provide email security. Implementing verification methods such as SPF, DKIM, and DMARC proves that the sender is legitimate to a receiving mail server. Without these, the servers receiving the email will fail in differentiating between spam and genuine messages, leading the email to land in the junk folder.
Choose A Solid Email Service Provider
One of the best ways to improve email deliverability is to choose a good email service provider. Email service providers are well-versed and updated with best practices to build sender reputation and increase deliverability. They practice email list hygiene and keep sending engaging content for the audience to increase responses. They also monitor the campaigns for critical metrics such as bounce rates, complaints, clicks, opens, etc. Email service providers also provide email security that includes phishing and ransomware protection. They also ensure MX backup.
The Best Email Marketing Tools for SaaS Businesses
- CRM (Customer Relationship Management) Tools: A CRM assists SaaS businesses in managing leads by nurturing them with emails to generate more conversions. They allow organizations to communicate with customers from a centralized inbox and reply to or view customers from a single dashboard.
- Email Finder: Email finders are crucial in email marketing. They help organizations find verified email addresses of relevant people to avoid bouncing and composing many guest posts. Email finders play a major role in increasing email outreach.
- ICP (Ideal Customer Profile): An ideal customer profile describes a potential customer interested in the business’s services. An ICP template can help the business keep track of customer information and bring insights, constructive feedback, and testimonials for the organization.
Final Words
The worst nightmare for any email marketer is getting their sent emails diverted from the receiver’s inbox and landing in the spam folder. Low-end email marketing programs may help create attractive emails, but email deliverability is paramount for email marketing. Once a SaaS business or its email service provider ensures email deliverability, it can add more value to generate business from prospects.
It can then use email marketing tools for managing leads and driving the marketing aspects. These components can be further strengthened by the addition of robust email security, including general phishing protection, specialized anti-phishing services, and ransomware protection.