Nothing kills your email marketing faster than landing in spam folders, yet most small business owners have no idea they're sabotaging their own deliverability. Here's the thing—email providers are getting smarter about filtering out unwanted emails, which means you need to be smarter about how you send them.
The biggest culprit? Spam trigger words that you might be using innocently. Stay away from words like "FREE," "BUY," "URGENT," or "ACT NOW" in your subject lines and email content. These words don't just sound spammy—they can actually land your emails in spam folders, meaning your carefully crafted campaigns never reach your subscribers at all.
Your choice of email platform matters more than you might think. Reputable platforms like Flodesk, Mailchimp, and other established services have good relationships with email providers and better deliverability rates than trying to send emails from your regular email account or a sketchy platform.
List hygiene is crucial for maintaining good deliverability. Email providers track engagement rates, and if you're consistently sending to people who never open your emails, it hurts your sender reputation. Remove inactive subscribers regularly—they're not just wasting your money, they're actively hurting your ability to reach engaged subscribers.
Focus on sending content that people actually want to receive. High engagement rates (opens, clicks, replies) signal to email providers that you're sending valuable content, which improves your deliverability over time. This is why building targeted lists with quality lead magnets is so important.
If you're using your own domain for email marketing, make sure you have proper authentication set up (SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records). Most email platforms will guide you through this process, but it's essential for good deliverability.
Finally, avoid sudden spikes in email volume. If you usually send to 100 people and suddenly send to 10,000, that looks suspicious to email providers.
