Every eMail marketer must ensure their data collection methods are sound. The effectiveness of targeting and personalization efforts are only as good as the data used to power them.

In eMail marketing, deployed eMails are coming from a sending IP address in addition to the “from name,” “from eMail address” that you establish. An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label assigned to each device (example: Your HighRoad account) participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication.

Your IP address reputation is like your credit score. If you are sending eMail using best practices, you’re reputation will be good. If you send eMail without proper HTML mark-up and consistently sending to bad addresses, your reputation, as well as your deliverability will need improvement. It’s much easier to maintain a good reputation than to repair a bad one. Even though your HighRoad Solution account has the best of breed ISP/Deliverability management of any solution on the market today, your e-mail strategy, may still help or hurt the IP address your account is set-up on.

One of the more frustrating aspects of eMail marketing is understanding why one of your eMails may not reach your recipient inbox. There are many hoops eMail marketers must jump through in order to reach inboxes and no organization is exempt from this. Even if you are deploying eMails to members who have opted into your eNewsetters, you will still need to get through all filtering levels before your eMail reaches the member inbox.

Creating your HTML eMail for Optimum Member Engagement: Best Practices

• Member signed up for that specific type of communication either via membership portal or email preference center

• Subject line is consistent with the email's content

• Preheader asks to add the domain or IP address to the member's safelist or whitelist for future delivery

• Preheader links to an online version of the email

DomainKeys (DK) and DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) are eMail authentication technologies designed to identify legitimate senders of email. Email authentication technologies like DK and DKIM were developed to prevent “spoofing,” the nefarious practice whereby anyone sending an email could potentially use your domain in the “From:” address for their message.

DK and DKIM help prevent spoofing by cryptographically “certifiying” that:

• You are the actual sender in the “From:” address, and;
• What you sent has not been altered along the way.

Keeping a database clean and up-to-date isn’t an easy or exciting task, but it is one that directly impacts your bottom line. If your database is messy, you are throwing money away every time you send an e-mail.

What to do if you have a messy database:

• Ensure that customer data is properly collected in the first place so that there will be less need to clean it up later. Implement a consistent process for entering contact records into your database. In the database world we are all aware of the acronym GIGO—garbage in, garbage out.
• Clean your list regularly by removing or amending incorrect data and getting rid of duplicate entries. You will quickly alienate your contacts if you send them e-mails that are irrelevant to them.
• Make sure prospect and communication data is standardized, cleansed and matched prior to loading it to your e-mail database.
• When acquiring data through web forms or data appends, it’s important to do a post process that puts all data in the same format.
• When you send your data out for hygiene make sure you get what you ask for. Each data company has a different definition of what data hygiene means.

A database is only as good as the data hygiene that goes into it. HighRoad Solution can help. To discuss data hygiene strategy, contact your Account Manager or contact the HighRoad Support Team to assist you with your data needs.