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Every email sender has a sender reputation calculated by the big mailbox providers. 

If you send email newsletters, this will include you.  Yes, this means Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, Apple and many others will assign a specific reputation to you, your domain, and your emails.

Your sender reputation is based upon how engaged your subscribers are with your emails.  The more engaged your subscribers,  the better.  The higher your open rate is, the better your chances of landing in your subscribers’ primary email tabs and not in their junk or promotions folders.  Conversely, the more unsubscribes, un-opens, and email bounces you get from your recipients, the lower your score will be.  That's why it’s so important to clean your email list.

Which brings me to my next point...

A smaller, engaged list is better than a huge list full of people who never open your emails.

Your goal is 1,000 true fans, not a million.  Small and clean.   Quality over quantity.

With that general idea in mind, below is a list of the important things you need to do to protect your sending reputation.  Do the things below, and your reputation will remain squeaky clean. The better your reputation, the more people who will see your emails.

Let’s get started:

USE AN Email Service Provider - Do not send your email newsletters from your regular email account.  While this can work OK for a very small list, it will quickly get you into trouble in a number of ways.  Use a real Email Service Provider (ESP) such as FASO’s ArtfulMail, MailChimp or ConvertKit. These platforms all have low priced or free options, so it’s very easy to get started for very little money.  ArtfulMail has the advantage of some art specific automations and features.

SEND REGULARLY - This is the #1 piece of advice I can give you to keep your list clean and your sender reputation good. It’s essential to send regularly. You must send at least once a month, or your engagement data will be wrong and you will greatly increase the chance of having people send you to their spam folder or, you may even accidentally send to a dangerous spam-trap.  You can avoid this fate simply by sending monthly.

USE DOUBLE OPT-IN -  Double opt-in means that people sign up for your list on your website, then they are sent an email to confirm their desire to join your list.  Once they click the link in that email, and only at that point, are they added to your list.  This method ensures that only people who are real, true fans of yours are joining your list. It also prevents malicious people from subscribing people to your list with the goal of hurting your reputation. (Yes, unfortunately, this happens more often than you’d think).

CHECK THE REPUTATION OF YOUR SUBSCRIBERS - There are services that you can use to check the reputation of email addresses on your list. Using these services will keep your list clean. Just like every email sender has a reputation, every email recipient has a reputation.  Do you often report emails as spam?  If you do it too much you might be classified as a "known abuser."  Don't send your newsletter to known abusers.  They tend to forget what they signed up for.  Another mistake is sending to "role-based" emails such as “[email protected]”, or “[email protected]”  We often se artists sending to “[email protected]” - don’t do that, it will hurt your reputation.   Note - if you use FASO ArtfulMail, we automatically check these reputations for you and clean dangerous emails off your list.

MONITOR YOUR AUDIENCE'S ENGAGEMENT - Again - it is essential to send often to keep that data accurate. People can't engage if there is nothing to engage with.

REMOVE DISENGAGED SUBSCRIBERS FROM YOUR LIST - Remove from your list anyone who hasn’t opened one of your emails for 270 days or more.  We settled on this number since artists don’t send as often as some business types and 270 days is the point where you run the risk of a box becoming a spam trap.  At this point send the person three re-engagement emails and then remove them if they didn’t click any of them. We will cover these emails in detail in a later article, but here is a quick overview:

• First re-engagement email:  The “Are you there?” email - “I noticed you didn’t respond to my first email.”
• Second re-engagement email:  “Your subscription has expired” email
• Third re-engagement email:  “You have been unsubscribed” email.  Then remove them.
  
  

DON’T FIGHT NORMAL LIST DECAY - Removing non-engaged subscribers is normal.  Having people lose interest is normal. In addition, A percentage of your subscribers will get new email addresses or change jobs and those email addresses will become inactive.  Again, this decay is normal. A normal email list "decays" at an approximate rate of approx 20% per year.  That is why it is important to continually be adding new subscribers.

DON'T BUY MAILING LISTS  - Just don’t do this.  Ever.

DON'T SIT ON A LIST FOR YEARS AND THEN TRY TO USE IT - The addresses will be stale, some may have already been converted into spam-traps. The sooner you start and use an email list the better because, as we’ve seen, email addresses decay over time.

DON'T BRIBE PEOPLE TO JOIN YOUR LIST -  This one might be a tad controversial as some “gurus” recommend you provide an "ethical bribe."  I don’t really agree with this tactic for artists. As your fan, just hearing from you is the reward.  You don't want to email people who only joined to get some freebie - they will pollute your list. YOU are the reason they are joining. You are the "rock star." True fans are joining for insider access to you. I can't imagine the Rolling Stones, Taylor Swift or Bruce Springsteen needs to bribe people to join their fan club.

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That’s really it!  Do these 10 things and you’ll enjoy a stellar sender reputation and you’ll be able to put a targeted email in your fans and followers inboxes whenever you need to.

Until next time, please remember that Fortune Favors the Bold Brush

Sincerely,

Clint Watson
BoldBrush / FASO Founder & Art Fanatic

PS - I know this article is more technical than many of them.  If you have any questions about any of these ten recommendations, please don’t hesitate to hit reply and ask me.  If you feel I’ve forgotten anything that you’ve found works well to protect your sender reputation, hit reply and let me know that too and I can update the article.