How to maintain email reputation with low volume quarterly newsletter sends?
Summary
What email marketers say10Marketer opinions
Marketer from Email Geeks suggests spreading the newsletter deployment out over several days (e.g., 250-500 per day) to help.
Email marketer from Email Marketing Forum explains the benefits of using a dedicated IP address, even for low-volume quarterly sends, gives you control over your sender reputation.
Email marketer from Reddit shares warming up your IP address gradually before sending large quarterly campaigns to protect sender reputation.
Email marketer from Reddit suggests finding ways to send more frequently, even small transactional emails, to keep sender reputation high.
Email marketer from Sendinblue shares that focusing on engagement is key. Even with infrequent sends, encourage opens, clicks, and replies to show ISPs that your audience wants your emails.
Marketer from Email Geeks shares that some mailbox providers focus more on IPs, while others focus on domains. Recommends spreading out the mail to maintain a heartbeat and promoting engagement through interactions, surveys, and actions within the email.
Email marketer from Email Marketing Forum responds that setting up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records is necessary for low-volume sending, as it verifies you are who you say you are.
Email marketer from GlockApps explains that list hygiene is essential, especially with quarterly sends. Regularly remove inactive subscribers to reduce bounce rates and spam complaints, which negatively impact your reputation.
Marketer from Email Geeks explains that quarterly sends make it tough to build a stable reputation, as IP or domain reputations can fade within 4 months. Recommends list hygiene for B2B sends due to turnover.
Email marketer from Mailjet explains that maintaining a consistent sending schedule is crucial, even with low volume. This helps ISPs recognize your sending patterns and builds trust over time.
What the experts say7Expert opinions
Expert from Spamresource explains that consistent volume is important, but with quarterly sends, ensuring excellent list hygiene and engagement metrics are crucial to offset the infrequency.
Expert from Word to the Wise explains the importance of understanding your sending reputation and provides tips for improving it. Also states the importance of setting expectations with new users and getting positive confirmation before sending them messages.
Expert from Email Geeks advises spreading out sends. Also, to provide value often to prevent subscribers from forgetting they subscribed and marking as spam.
Expert from Spamresource advises focusing on highly relevant and engaging content, making each quarterly send count and minimizing unsubscribes or spam complaints due to perceived lack of value.
Expert from Email Geeks shares that sending 3000 emails quarterly is small enough not to require warmup, but recipient domains/filters will be relevant. Also mentions that Microsoft may reset reputation to a "not in use" category in 3 months.
Expert from Email Geeks suggests keeping the IP active with transactional notifications or other types of messages in between the quarterly sends to keep the IP "alive".
Expert from Word to the Wise shares that ensuring email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) is properly configured to validate sending legitimacy, which is more critical when sending infrequently.
What the documentation says5Technical articles
Documentation from DMARC.org details how to implement Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance (DMARC) policy, which helps email senders protect their domain from unauthorized use and provides feedback on email authentication results.
Documentation from Microsoft outlines that following email authentication best practices helps ensure that your quarterly newsletters are delivered to the inbox rather than spam folders.
Documentation from Google Postmaster Tools explains that monitoring your IP reputation in Postmaster Tools helps identify and address any issues affecting deliverability before quarterly campaigns.
Documentation from RFC describes DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) which provides a way to verify the integrity of an email message and confirm that it was sent from the claimed domain, enhancing trust.
Documentation from RFC clarifies that properly configuring Sender Policy Framework (SPF) records helps prevent spoofing and improves email deliverability, crucial for maintaining a positive sender reputation.