Email

Don’t bet your job that someone read your email.

Email, Tips / By /

Can you count on your email getting delivered or read? Don't bet your reputation or job on it!

Email is still one of the most widely used tools in business—but it’s not foolproof. Just because you hit “Send” doesn’t mean your message was received, opened, or even delivered. Between spam filters, full inboxes, misaddressed emails, and security systems, your message may never reach the person you intended.

If you’ve sent an important email and haven’t received a response within a reasonable amount of time, don’t just wait and hope. Take action:

  • Check your Sent folder to confirm the message actually went out.
  • Verify the recipient’s email address—a small typo can send your message to the wrong person or nowhere at all.
  • If there was an attachment, consider its size. Many email systems still have limits on incoming message sizes. Large or multiple attachments can cause your email to bounce or be rejected.
  • Review your email. If you used CAPS LIKE THIS, your email could easily have ended up in the recipients SPAM folder.
  • Follow up. A polite second email can help. If it’s time-sensitive or critical, pick up the phone. Simply ask if they received your message—no pressure, just a quick confirmation.

Email Delivery ImageToday, email deliverability is more complicated than it used to be. Filters and firewalls are stricter, and email services are cracking down on anything that seems suspicious. One major way to improve your email’s chances of making it to the inbox is to ensure your domain is properly authenticated.

This is where SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records come in.

These are DNS (Domain Name System) records that help verify you are who you say you are when sending email from your domain. Without them, your messages are more likely to be marked as spam—or blocked entirely.

  • SPF (Sender Policy Framework) tells email servers which IP addresses are authorized to send email on behalf of your domain.
  • DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) adds a digital signature to your messages that proves they haven’t been tampered with.
  • DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance) builds on SPF and DKIM, giving domain owners control over what happens to unauthenticated messages.

Together, these records protect your reputation and improve deliverability.

The takeaway?

Don’t assume your email was seen. Take the time to double-check your message, follow up when necessary, and make sure your domain is set up correctly behind the scenes.

Your reputation—and sometimes your job—depends on it!

Are Your Emails to Gmail Accounts Bouncing?

Customer Service, ecommerce, Email, Google, Marketing, Tips / By /

If you send email to Gmail users, this information is extremely important! It is about getting your email delivered to Gmail users.

Don't think it is important? Consider this: In the United States, Gmail holds a 53% market share for email clients! (Source: TechReport)

While Google has not widely publicized it, they are bouncing legitimate emails regularly. With that in mind, I asked Bard, Google's AI application: "Does google bounce email if the sender account does not have a DKIM record?"

Bard's reply: "Yes, Google will bounce emails from sender accounts that do not have both SPF and DKIM records. This is because SPF and DKIM are two email authentication mechanisms that help to prevent email spoofing and fraud. Spoofing is when someone sends an email pretending to be from a different sender, such as a legitimate company or organization. Fraud is when someone uses email to scam or deceive people.

SPF (Sender Policy Framework) is a DNS record that specifies which IP addresses are authorized to send email from a particular domain. DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) is a cryptographic signature that is added to an email message to verify its authenticity.

When Google receives an email, it checks the SPF and DKIM records for the sender domain. If the email does not pass these checks, it will be bounced back to the sender."

So, NOW you must have a "SPF" and a "DKIM" record in your Domain DNS. If you do not have those records created, email sent to a Gmail account will likely not be delivered.

For many years when most Domain Registrars created a new domain registration, they automatically generated a SPF record, but not DKIM records. That remains true for nearly all domain registrars unless you purchase email services through them.

Ask your email provider if your domain has SPF and DKIM records in your DNS records. It takes time to create any DNS record, so expect to be billed by whoever creates the records for you.

If you are a WebWise Design & Marketing client, and need DNS records created, we will email you about them, and explain what you need to have done.

 

Branding With Every Email – Get Your Email Delivered – Professional Presentation

Branding, Email, Marketing, Tips / By /

Domain emailI wrote here about using domain mail over five years ago. With the number of people not taking advantage of one of the simplest means of branding available, I believe the subject deserves another go round. I am talking about those who are not using their domain email accounts when sending or replying to business email. Domain email is simply an email account using a name of your choice, e.g., you@yourcompany.com or info@yourcompany.com.

Here are just three of many reasons it is important to use domain mail.

  • Branding
  • Deliverability
  • Professional Presentation

Branding 

In businesses and on websites of all kinds, too often you will see contact email such as billybob@yahoo.com, 2cool@hotmail.com (now outlook.com), you@yourISP.com, sally312@gmail.com or something similar. Those same addresses get used routinely in emails to clients, prospects, and co-workers. Instead of those personal addresses, your prospects, clients, vendors, and others should be seeing email from you@yourdomain.com, bill@yourdomain.com, sally@yourdomain.com, sales@yourdomain.com, support@yourdomain.com, or anyone@yourdomain.com.  EVERY email sent from and replied to your business should be reminding your prospects, clients and vendors of your brand. Using domain mail is the least expensive branding tool you can implement, and you are branding with every email you send.

Deliverability

If your email doesn’t get delivered and opened, you are wasting your time writing and sending it. Spam has become ubiquitous, and your prospects and clients may hesitate to open an email from a toocutesy@yahoo.com, allnumbers@hotmail.com, silly@gmail.com or inappropriate@someother.com address. Deliverability can be critical when you are sending a proposal or answering a specific request. Domain mail addresses are not as prone to be caught in spam filters as the “other” @ addresses I have been mentioning. Your recipients will, at a glance, know the email is coming from your business if you use your domain mail account.  Get every email you send delivered and opened.

Professional Presentation 

In other manners of communication, i.e., phone, letters, faxes, and face-to-face, nearly everyone does their best to present themselves and their business professionally. You would be surprised at the number of people who spend thousands of dollars on traditional marketing materials, their web sites and nicely done email campaigns, yet diminish their value by including an inappropriate email address. Using your domain email will present you professionally as many times as you send an email. Why wouldn’t you want to do that with every email you send?

Okay, let’s address the two most common excuses for not using domain mail. The first is, “I don’t want to check two or more email accounts.” With today’s email programs that easily check more than one account at a time (I check over a dozen at a time), that is not a very good reason to miss out on branding with every email. If you honestly feel you can only check one email account, then your email provider can forward as many accounts as you like to just one account. Of course, that account should be a domain mail account.   The second reason is, “I like Gmail, and I use mydomain@gmail.com.” I will grant that doing this is better than using personal non-domain email accounts. It still doesn’t give you the branding or level of professional presentation that is afforded by using domain mail. If you feel you can’t live without Gmail, then use Google Apps for Business, which included Gmail that uses your domain mail. Your mail will get sent from and to you@yourdomain.com, but you will still have all the advantages of Gmail’s web-based interface. Google charges $5/user/month or $50/user/year.

Start using your domain mail for every email you send today!

P.S. If you are a client of ours and are not using your domain mail, call or email us and we will be happy to help you get started.

12+ Tips for Empowering Automated eCommerce Emails

Customer Service, Email / By /

Sending emailDo you know what the automated emails sent from your website, especially your ecommerce website, look like? Hopefully, you carefully crafted them before your website went live. If not, please do yourself a favor and review them now.

Here are some quick tips to make your emails look professional. Because of the seasonal timing, we are going to talk about ecommerce “transactional” emails, though many of these tips apply to other automated emails as well.

  • Do not send them from a no-reply@yourcompany.com email account. Send from an email address that gets monitored daily (preferably multiple times per day). Respond quickly to any email received.
  • Put the most important information right at the beginning of the subject, to make your emails more helpful, e.g., “Thanks for Order #12345 – My estore” (Be careful of the length so it does not get truncated.)
  • Make sure your emails are consistently branded and well-designed.
  • Make the words Thank You bold or bigger than the other text. While you are at it, tell them you appreciate their business.
  • If you won’t be furnishing a tracking number, tell them why, and when and how they can expect delivery.
  • Include links back to your shipping and returns page(s).
  • Be sure to prominently display your Toll-Free phone number. If you don’t have a Toll-Free customer service number, you are not serious about wanting repeat customers.
  • Include office hours (and time zone), so your customers have the opportunity to talk to a real person.
  • Prominently display your customer service email address they can use if they want to contact you later instead of having to use your form again.
  • Use Google’s URL Builder for Google Analytics (or something similar) to track your links. Remember marketing without measurement is not marketing.
  • Test all of your email responses with multiple email clients for both PC and Apple computers.
  • Don’t forget to test on mobile devices including iPhones & iPads, Android Phones & tablets, and others when possible.

Please don’t underestimate the power of automated email. They are often read at a critical point of your relationship with your customers. Use the opportunity wisely.

Why your email “From” is important.

Email, Marketing, Tips / By /

The first thing people see when you send an email is “From:” and then your “Subject” (see “How to avoid email Subject Mistakes). You control “From” in your email client settings. For those of you using Outlook or Outlook Express, it is the “Name” field in your Mail Account “Properties” box. For those of you using Eudora, it is called “Real Name.” You get the idea. The same types of conventions generally hold true for most web-based mail interfaces.

The “From” in your e-mail address can, and often does, make the difference between someone opening or deleting an email. That is if the intended recipient actually sees it.

As we have talked about before (What your email address says about you.), spam filters are everywhere including at the mail server level, the recipient’s ISP, often at the company level, possibly on the desktop as a standalone program, and finally, as a feature in the recipient’s e-mail program. Consequently, your “From” gets looked at several times before your email is (or isn’t) delivered. A “From” that includes a spammy-looking nick name, may make the difference as to whether your email is delivered and/or opened.

Your “From” should include your name (as the recipient knows it) and possibly your company name, your title or department. Couple a good “From” with a well-written “Subject” and your email will get delivered and opened before the others in those ever-expanding in-boxes of your recipients.

Paying attention to both the “From” and your email “Subject” will, indeed, pay you dividends for your time.