Whitelist Bootcamp
One of the questions I’m asked most frequently is “why is our bounced rate so high?“ Well, it can be a combination of things, but nine times out of ten, its because the email address they’re sending their message from is not on their customer’s whitelist. The best way to remedy this dilemma is to simply ask your customers—upon list signup—to add you to their whitelist. Even a simple statement such as “To ensure delivery of our messages to your inbox, please add info@xyzcompany to your address book” will suffice. A reminder should also accompany each message.
Certain email clients such as AOL and Hotmail filter unknown emails to their respective junk folders, never to be read by the potential recipient.
According to the 2006 MarketingSherpa Email Marketing Benchmark Guide only 22% of email marketers as their recipients to add them to a white list. Why take the risk of having your message that was requested never make it to the inbox?
Also, just as a reminder, remember to keep your From: address constant. This helps subscribers who have added your email address to their whitelist or “allowed senders” list.
Here is a listing of whitelist instructions for the most popular email clients such as AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail and Gmail.
Posted by MindComet on Dec. 29, 2006