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Social media to improve email delivery
Mail delivered to the bulk folder is likely to continue landing in the bulk folder without intervention. Sometimes a sender can talk to the ISP involved and get mail moved back to the inbox. Sometimes a sender can make hygiene changes and get mail moved back to the inbox.
The most effective way to get mail delivered to the inbox, however, is for recipients to go into the bulk folder and mark the mail as “not spam.” Nothing is more effective at getting mail delivered to the inbox.
But there is a bit of a catch 22 there. If mail ends up in the bulk folder consistently, recipients tend to forget about it. Many people trawl through their bulk folder sporadically, if at all. If recipients aren’t engaged with mail and don’t know when they should see it, then they won’t miss it and won’t look for it.
So if mail is ending up in the bulk folder and recipients aren’t expecting it what can a sender do? One of the obvious answers is find another channel. Let recipients know through some channel besides email that they need to look in their bulk folder for a particular email.
In the past it was difficult to find non-email ways to connect recipients. I worked with customers who really had no other way to interact with recipients than email. They weren’t running a website, they didn’t have any other contact methods, they were really stuck. But a recent tweet from AppSumo shows how social media can be used to improve email delivery.
Using social media to improve mail delivery
Of course, not every AppSumo recipient follows them on twitter. But every recipient that does pull the mail out of their bulk folder tells Gmail that the mail really is wanted. Most ISPs heavily weight users removing the mail from their bulk folder. ISPs know that users who look for mail in the bulk folder really are engaged and really do want that mail.
Using social media is a great way to contact recipients through another channel to address delivery problems. Even just a few people pulling the mail out of the bulk folder will tell the ISP the mail is wanted. Plus, those people will now find that mail delivered to their inbox by default, no matter what happens with other users.
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It’s about time business owners started to realise that holding their cards too close to their chest isn’t always the best way of achieving results. The days of exclusivity of database subscribers are behind us. Sure, you can tempt people to believe that they are special because they are receiving information before others but now that social media is so massively embraced, sharing is ‘the new black’. Don’t be afraid to spread your message far and wide. The further afield you cast your net, the more likely you will be to catch genuinely interested subscribers to volunteer in your audience.