Get Ready for the Holiday Season
Sending emails successfully before and during the holiday season takes prep work. In this article, we go over a few things to think about as the end of the year approaches us.
Create a plan for your end-of-year emails
Before the holidays get under way, make sure you have a solid plan in place that outlines how many email communications you’re sending, when and what days you’re sending emails, and to which lists. Think about all the emails that need sent at the end of the year, including holidays.
Don’t get caught up in the busyness of the holidays and start blasting emails! Successful marketers and communicators know how often they should reach out to their customers.
**Helpful Tips:**
· Don’t wait until the actual holidays to send emails to your customers – warm your customers and IPs up!
· Schedule emails up to months in advance
· Use JangoMail Automation to save time and send emails for you
Sending with a successful foundation
If you spend time looking at our help articles or talk to one of our awesome team members, you’ve heard us talk about the importance of DNS records. When is the last time you checked to make sure you’re passing with flying colors?
Successful emails start with a great foundation – which includes email authentication for your sending domain. Authentication consists of several DNS records: SPF record, DKIM record, custom tracking domain (CNAME), and DMARC.
SPF and DKIM records have been around for a long time. Last year, we enhanced the JangoMail DKIM record to increase the length for improved security. To update to this latest version of DKIM, delete and create a new record.
For additional email authentication, we also recommend setting up a DMARC record. It’s important to have a valid SPF and DKIM in place before setting this up. DMARC instructs receiving servers what to do with your messages if they fail to pass SPF and DKIM checks. There are three options to specify, with ‘reject’ being the strongest and recommended.
Authenticated emails can still have problems getting into the inbox for other reasons – so if you’re not sure you have these important records set up – contact us to check for you today!
Keep your lists clean all year long
Have you been completing hygiene and upkeep tasks on a regular basis to keep your list maintained? There are several steps that should be done regularly to keep your list in the best shape.
These steps include removing bad email addresses – use our Scrub tool to easily delete duplicates, bounces, unsubscribes and global suppression list addresses.
Review recipient engagement with your messages – and remove emails that haven’t interacted in the last 3-6 months. This helps maintain your list, increase your opens and clicks, and boost your sending reputation.
If it’s been a long time since you’ve taken these steps to keep your list clean, JangoMail offers List Validation to help you. JangoMail’s List Validation will help verify your lists and remove invalid email addresses, spam traps and more. Contact us to learn more.
Summary
The end of the year is approaching! Start the work now to be prepared. We hope this helps you create a solid plan to finish the year off with some great emails.
The JangoMail Support Team is ready to assist you. Contact us if we can help you with any of these steps!
