This document explains how you can maximize delivery and acceptance of your email marketing messages while using Lead Liaison. Start by reviewing the checklist in Section 1 and make sure each item is addressed. Each of the following Sections describes the items in the checklist in more detail. By reading this document you will learn three cornerstones of email marketing; 1) how to get the best email deliverability, 2) how to manage subscribers and messages for maximum acceptance and 3) how to grow your subscriber base.
"The Goal of Email Marketing and Lead Nurturing is Quality, Not Quantity"
- Lead Liaison

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Table of Contents

Table of Contents
1 Email Deliverability and Acceptance Checklist
1.1 Things for you to do:
1.2 Things to do with Lead Liaison's support:
2 How to Get the Best Email Deliverability
2.1 Don't Send Emails through a Shared IP Address
2.2 Warm up your IP Address
2.3 Use Caution with Old Database Contacts
2.4 Use Authentication
2.4.1 DomainKeys/DKIM
2.4.2 Sender ID/SPF
2.4.3 List of ISPs and the Authentication Methods they use
2.5 Consider Using a Different Related Domain to Send Emails
2.6 Use a 3^rd Party ESP like Lead Liaison
2.7 Manage your Reputation with the ISPs
2.7.1 Handling Email Bounces
2.7.2 Resolve Spam Complaints
2.7.3 Check Blacklist Records
2.7.4 Monitor Feedback Loops
2.8 Follow the CAN-SPAM Act Requirements
3 How to Manage Subscribers and Messages for Maximum Acceptance
3.1 Have a Simple and Prominent Unsubscribe Link
3.2 Use "Safely Unsubscribe"
3.3 Create the Right Email Marketing Template
3.3.1 Use your Company Colors and Logo
3.3.2 Don't use Spam like Words in your Email
3.3.3 Send Messages in Text Format with HTML Format
3.3.4 Limit the Size of Emails
3.3.5 Limit the Use of Images in Emails
3.4 Add a Link to your Privacy Policy Web Page in your Emails
3.5 Go Slow at First
3.6 Have an Active Email Address for Replies
3.7 Mark the Source of your Contacts
3.8 Check and Re-Check Uploaded Lists
4 How to Grow your Subscriber Base
4.1 Create Great Content
4.2 Get People's Permission
4.3 Use Many Landing Pages and Web Forms
4.4 Keep Web Form Fields Simple
4.5 Show a Picture of your Content
4.6 Use Auto Responders to Cross Promote
4.7 Provide Social Sharing options
5 References

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Email Deliverability and Acceptance Checklist

Following this checklist will ensure your email messages successfully reach your recipients and will increase the likelihood of your messages being accepted, not marked as spam/junk, by your recipients.

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Things for you to do:

• • Send your initial lists to clean lists (people you know well who won't hit the spam button)
  • Use lead nurturing to send relevant content based on roles, actions and interests
  • Only send to old database contacts once you develop a good reputation
  • Consider using a different but related domain for sending emails
  • Setup SenderID and SPF
  • Setup postmaster@ and abuse@ email addresses
  • Avoid buying, renting or borrowing lists from 3^rd parties
  • Check the integrity of your contact lists before and after an upload
  • Create great marketing content
  • Segment your marketing content into smaller chunks vs. sending "clusters"
  • Get people's permission before adding them to an email marketing track
  • Embed a "Safely Unsubscribe" and "Privacy Policy" link at the bottom of your messages
  • Do not be too aggressive with your email communications especially at first (think dating)
  • Use auto-responders that cross promote
  • Use an active email address as your reply-to email address
  • Make the unsubscribe process easier than the subscribe process
  • Use your colors and logo in your content so your recipients recognize you
  • Don't include too many images (<=4) in your messages
  • Keep your messages small (< 37K Bytes)
  • Follow CAN-SPAM Act requirements

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Things to do with Lead Liaison's support:

• • Setup DKIM/DomainKeys
  • Send from a dedicated IP address, not a shared IP address
  • Start by warming up your IP address and sending a small amount (<1,000) of messages
  • Process hard and soft bounce emails and test
  • Check blacklist records occasionally to make sure your dedicated IP address is not on any lists
  • Make sure you tag your contacts with a lead source
  • Segment current and future contacts by building Lead Liaison Target Lists
  • Build several landing pages and web forms to increase lead capture and build subscribers
  • Keep web form fields simple
  • Send a text representation with your html email
  • Monitor feedback loops and resolve spam complaints
  • Avoid using spam-like words ("free") in your messages

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How to Get the Best Email Deliverability

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Don't Send Emails through a Shared IP Address

Deliverability and reputation problems can occur if you are using a shared IP address to send out your emails while other senders use the same IP address. If the other senders emails get marked as spam or the shared IP address gets blacklisted your IP will be blacklisted and/or your emails will land in the junk folder. Many ESPs automatically use shared IP addresses across many clients.
Lead Liaison assigns a dedicated IP address to each customer. Trials are run using a shared IP address pool. Even in the pool, there are multiple IP addresses to prevent one from going down and affecting other trials.

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Warm up your IP Address

If you're just starting out with Lead Liaison or your IP address has changed you will need to warm up your IP address to develop a reputation with the ISPs. If you suddenly send out 30,000 emails in one day from a new IP your messages will be limited or purposely throttled by ISPs. If you're in the thousands of emails to begin with you might avoid scrutiny. However, if bounces, spam complaints, or spam trap hits represent a high percentage of your emails sent you'll damage your reputation right out of the box. Make sure you initial sends are to very clean lists.

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Use Caution with Old Database Contacts

Try not to send emails to invalid or very old contacts in your database. It's best to run some type of database cleansing tool on your database first. If you send a single message to your entire database and include these dormant contacts you could have a high percentage of bounces. Additionally, old email addresses could be spam traps. Bounces and spam traps will send a notification to the ISP and damage your reputation. The best practice is to send frequent emails to small amounts of old contacts, vs. sending to your entire database or all old contacts, and monitor results. If you're getting lots of bounces phase out this effort. Conduct this "experiment" only after establishing a good reputation.

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Use Authentication

As discussed, establishing a good reputation is vital for email deliverability. To protect your reputation several methods have been developed by various consortiums. These methods verify your email messages come from an authorized server and not from a nefarious source. The solutions are DomainKeys/DKIM and Sender ID/SPF records. Each authentication method is described below.

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DomainKeys/DKIM

Created by Yahoo!, DomainKeys/DKIM is an authentication scheme that signs messages based on the "from" header and a DNS (Domain Name Server) record maintained by your DNS servers. For example, if your company's domain name is registered with GoDaddy.com there's a good chance your DNS is also hosted with GoDaddy.com. To keep it simple, a DNS is a set of rules and parameters for your domain name. Since your DNS is managed by you and hosted inside a secure area (such as GoDaddy.com) it's a secure way to prove the "from" address originated from the correct mail servers.
DomainKeys/DKIM validates emails using two security keys. The keys encrypt messages before delivery and validate the message at delivery time. DKIM and DomainKeys are very similar; however, DKIM was created by several companies to enhance DomainKeys. Today, major ISPs such as Google (@gmail.com) and Yahoo! (@yahoo.com) use DKIM.
Benefits of using DomainKeys/DKIM:

• It allows the originating domain of an e-mail to be positively identified, allowing domain-based blacklists and white lists to be more effective. This is also likely to make phishing attacks easier to detect.
• It allows forged e-mail messages to be discarded on sight, either by end-user e-mail software (mail user agents), or by ISPs' mail transfer agents.
• It allows abusive domain owners to be tracked more easily.
• It allows a great reduction in abuse desk work for DKIM-enabled domains if e-mail receivers use the DKIM system to automatically drop forged e-mail messages claiming to be from that domain.
• The domain owner can then focus their abuse team energies on their own users who actually are abusing their use of that domain.

Lead Liaison uses a premier email marketing engine from Port25 which enables authentication using DomainKeys/DKIM. Lead Liaison will completely configure DomainKeys/DKIM for you. No setup is required on your part. Your Lead Liaison Customer Success Representative will set this up.

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Sender ID/SPF

Sender ID/SPF prevents other people/servers from pretending to be you. Sender Policy Framework (SPF) is similar to DomainKeys/DKIM since it validates you as the sender; however, the implementation is different from DomainKeys/DKIM. SPF works by publishing what is called a "reverse MX" record to tell the Image Added internet what machines are allowed to send mail from the domain.
Sender ID and SPF are different. Both validate email sender addresses using similar methods, publish records in DNS and use the same syntax for their policy records. They are different in what they validate and the layer of the email system they check.
Sender ID and SPF is configured outside of Lead Liaison and should be done by your company. The setup requires changing your DNS record. You can check where your DNS is hosted here: http://whois.domaintools.com/ and possibly enlist support from your DNS host to help you change the record.
There are wizard's to help configure SPF and Sender ID available here:

• SPF: http://www.openspf.org/
• Sender ID: http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/safety/content/technologies/senderid/wizard/

Here are a few simple rules to keep in mind when configuring your Sender ID / SPF record to work with Lead Liaison:

• If you already have your own SPF or Sender ID record set up, all you need to do is add "include: leadliaisonconnector.com" to the existing record and you're done.
• SPF clients ignore records which do not carry a recognized version such as "v=spf1".
• A domain MUST NOT return multiple records that begin with the version "v=spf1". If more than one "v=spf1" record is returned, this constitutes a syntax error and the result is "unknown".

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List of ISPs and the Authentication Methods they use

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Consider Using a Different Related Domain to Send Emails

If you're sending lots of email marketing messages from the same domain as your email addresses and these messages get marked as spam or land in the spam box you could affect other employees ability to send emails. If you are not careful with your email marketing practices lots of recipients might designate your email as spam and your corporations domain might get blacklisted. Then, no one will be able to send emails in your company. Consider using a different domain for your email marketing. Make it similar to your primary domain. For example, ourcompany.com could be our-company.com.

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Use a 3^rd Party ESP like Lead Liaison

Reputable ESPs provide many advantages. For example, they:

1. are white listed with the ISPs
2. are tied into feedback loops with ISPs (to receive notice of spam messages or blacklisting)
3. have software programs to ensure messages are CAN-SPAM compliant
4. have authentication procedures such as Domain Keys, DKIM, SenderID, and SPF
5. can help you troubleshoot issues and avoid making mistakes
6. keep up on the email marketing and email deliverability industry

Lead Liaison provides these six advantages with every software subscription license.

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Manage your Reputation with the ISPs

ISP reputation is based on

1. volume history,
2. spam complaints,
3. spam trap hits,
4. bounce percentages,
5. proper authentication and
6. blacklist entries.

To build and maintain a good reputation

1. require double opt-in,
2. scrub your lists for bounces,
3. do not buy, rent or borrow third-party lists,
4. setup a postmaster and abuse email address for any complaints,
5. monitor feedback loops,
6. authenticate with DKIM/DomainKeys,
7. authenticate with SenderID,
8. authenticate with SPF, and
9. do not mail to old or invalid database contacts.

Lead Liaison automatically appends an unsubscribe link to the bottom of email messages to provide recipients with the choice of opting out instead of hitting the spam button.

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Handling Email Bounces

Email bounces are automatically processed by Lead Liaison. After processing your emails, subscribers will be marked appropriately, and you can access all bounce related statistics from the Statistics ? Email Campaign Stats or Statistics ? Contact List Stats pages. Hard bounces will mark a Subscriber as "Bounced" by the application after one bounce, and deal with problems like "email address doesn't exist" or "invalid domain name". Soft bounces take 5 times to remove a subscriber from your list, and deal with more common problems like "relay problem" or "mailbox is full".
Lead Liaison also has a process to configure DKIM/DomainKeys, SenderID and will support you when setting up your SPF record.

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Resolve Spam Complaints

Occasionally recipients may report a complaint to an ISP. ISPs will look for a way to communicate with your company. It is recommended postmaster@yourdomain.com and abuse@yourdomain.com are set up as valid email accounts and go to someone that can and will actually do something about complaints.

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Check Blacklist Records

Ensure your dedicated IP address is not listed on any RBL (real-time black lists). You can do this by checking http://www.mxtoolbox.com/Su

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Monitor Feedback Loops

Each ISP sets up a feedback loop. A feedback loop is a way for recipients to directly communicate complaints with an ISP and allow the ISP to communicate the complaint to the offender. The feedback loop is used to monitor complaint rates and make sure you aren't hitting any spam traps. There are several feedback loops Lead Liaison will sign your IP address up for. Lead Liaison will monitor feedback loops on your behalf.

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Follow the CAN-SPAM Act Requirements

Any companies not following CAN-SPAM compliancy will be in violation of their contract and subject to disengagement with Lead Liaison.

• Provide a way for your subscribers to opt-out of receiving future e-mails.
• Make sure your e-mail includes your physical address.
• Make sure the e-mail header information clearly identifies your business and does not mislead your audience in any way.
• Make sure your e-mail subject line isn't misleading.
• Make sure your e-mail clearly states that the e-mail is a solicitation unless you have permission.
• Make sure your e-mail complies with any applicable guidelines for sexually oriented material.

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How to Manage Subscribers and Messages for Maximum Acceptance

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Have a Simple and Prominent Unsubscribe Link

Don't bury your unsubscribe link at the top of your email messages. Contrary to belief, put the unsubscribe link at the top of your email. This will broker trust with your email recipients and prevent them from hitting the spam button. If recipients grow frustrated by not being able to find the unsubscribe link they'll take the easy route and click the spam button. The goal of email marketing is quality, not quantity.
Make the unsubscribe process easier than the subscribe process.

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Use "Safely Unsubscribe"

If a recipient clicks "unsubscribe" on a spam email it might tell the spammer the recipient has a real email address. This has people concerned about clicking the unsubscribe button. Acknowledge people's fears and include a statement to your subscribers letting them know they can safely unsubscribe at any time. Remember you'd rather have the recipient click the unsubscribe link than mark your email as spam.
Test and make sure the unsubscribe link actually works. If the unsubscribe returns an error they may just mark you as junk instead of letting you know it's broken.

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Create the Right Email Marketing Template

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Use your Company Colors and Logo

When possible, use your company colors and logo. The recipient will recognize your communication, especially if your templates are consistent, and won't hit the spam/junk button. But, keep in mind a pretty email is nice to look at but the most important thing is getting your information to your subscriber so don't get too fancy with the design. Lots of design elements will get stripped out by mail clients and Outlook will display hardly any of them.

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Don't use Spam like Words in your Email

Avoid adding spam words like "free" to your email messages or templates. Fortunately, Lead Liaison includes an email message grader that scans your email content for spam-like words. Replace the words with something less spam-like. For example, instead of "free" you may use "complementary".

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Send Messages in Text Format with HTML Format

If you're sending your message in html format make sure the text representation is a true representation of the text in the html version. Fortunately, Lead Liaison auto-converts your html messages into text format with a single button click.

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Limit the Size of Emails

Don't use images or send attachments that are too large. 300K bits (37K Bytes) should be the absolute max size of the email so be sure to make sure the total for images and attachments comes in well under that (adding a file to an email will increase the size by about 30% just in encoding it).

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Limit the Use of Images in Emails

Don't include too many images in your email (1-2 per email should suffice) or some filters will flag it

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Add a Link to your Privacy Policy Web Page in your Emails

In your privacy policy web page, assure the recipient that lists, names, addresses, email addresses and any other personal information will be exclusively used for your communications with them and will not be shared or sold to other entities to build trust with your subscribers. Having this link demonstrates you're concerned about keeping your subscribers information private.

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Go Slow at First

When you're just starting your communications or lead nurturing campaigns go slow at first. Send your communications every month or so in the beginning then ramp up frequency 3-6 months later. Don't send infrequent communications which signals a lack of commitment and inconsistency thereby worrying the subscriber. Develop a lead nurturing campaign or various lead nurturing tracks and stick to a set schedule. Contact Lead Liaison for example lead nurturing programs to use as an example.

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Have an Active Email Address for Replies

Use a valid and active email address in your reply to address. Lead Liaison allows marketing to send email on behalf of sales. For example, if John Smith, john@company.com, is the lead owner of Susan Que then marketing can send lead nurturing campaigns or one-off marketing messages to contacts like Susan as if they came from john@company.com. This takes the burden off of sales to stay in touch with their prospects giving them more time to focus on closing deals.

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Mark the Source of your Contacts

As your contact lists grow make sure to mark the source of your leads. For example, did the leads come from a trade show, website inquiry, website tracking or a partner. If a flurry of bounces, spam traps, or unsubscribes occur you can analyze the source of the lead and mitigate the issue on the particular segment of your database.
Lead Liaison provides the ability to segment your database using various lead characteristics and behavior while interacting with your company's market assets. Ensure your emails are targeted and relevant by building Target Lists that dynamically update based on a contacts profile.
Lead Liaison also applies a default Lead Source tag to new leads to help you track the source of your contacts.

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Check and Re-Check Uploaded Lists

Before and after uploading a contact list in .xls format check the integrity of your lists. Make sure all the formatting is still in place, the fields are correct, and no data values were replaced with mysterious characters.

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How to Grow your Subscriber Base

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Create Great Content

The best way to grow your subscribers is to create great marketing content. Use lead nurturing to send relevant communications to individuals based on personas and interests. Create a content marketing map. Lead Liaison has a content marketing map template provided upon request. Also focus on sending content based on where the buyer is in the buying process. If the content is related to the recipient there's a good chance they won't hit the spam button and they might just disseminate your material to their colleagues or professional network.
As the golden rule, only send email marketing messages when you've got something valuable and worthy of recipient's time. However, refrain from inundating them with content which might force them to opt out. Your communications could be weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly which are all typical. We strongly suggest breaking your content up into smaller bits though so it's easier for your subscribers to consume. Whatever you decide, stick to a consistent schedule and use lead nurturing technology to send content relevant to your prospects interests.

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Get People's Permission

Always make sure your recipients want to receive an email message from you. For example, don't just send an email to all business cards collected at a trade show. Have your marketing team ask the person if it's okay to send them some email communications when they are collecting the person's business card. If they give you their permission, take note of it and add them to the list.
Have sales make invitations to a mailing list part of their job. Lead Liaison provides the ability for sales people to drop a contact into a lead nurturing cycle in a few clicks. If the contact provides their permission to send future touch points or have communication then you're in the clear.

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Use Many Landing Pages and Web Forms

Start appending web forms to your marketing content to get subscribers into your database. Require information to be filled out on a form if you have valuable content such as white papers, eBooks, webinars, podcasts, PowerPoint, or videos to share.
Lead Liaison provides marketers with the ability to create web forms and landing pages in minutes usually a visual designer. Create a new landing page for new content in minutes and drag/drop your web form into the designer. Creating multiple web forms increases the likelihood of collecting the leads contact information. Once the contact information is collected Lead Liaison will help you with auto-replies and nurturing to build the relationship with the lead and get them ready to speak with the sales team.

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Keep Web Form Fields Simple

Less is more when it comes to web form fields. No one wants to spend lots of time filling out their information over and over again. If you lower resistance you'll have a better chance of collecting their information. Lead Liaison uses progressive profiling technology to auto-complete fields previously filled out and/or substitute already completed fields with other fields to collect new information.

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Show a Picture of your Content

B2B buyers are inherently risk averse. If you're providing a white paper for example, show a nice picture of the front page or first page of the paper. If you're providing some type of eBook show the cover of the eBook. If you do a good job of conveying the value of the content the subscriber is less likely to give you their personal email (gmail, yahoo, etc.) and give you their corporate email instead.

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Use Auto Responders to Cross Promote

Auto responders are the email responses sent back to a recipient once they sign up for something or fill out a web form. Instead of sending a one or two line sentence back with a download lead create a nice corporate email marketing template the provides the download link at the top along with the promotion of three other related pieces of content such as blog posts, case studies or tools.
Lead Liaison's lead tracking technology will help identify what your leads interests are by tracking pages viewed, time spent on the site, and how they arrived on your web page. All future communication between your prospect and your companies marketing material will be tracked and consolidated into your prospects profile. Sales will be more efficient with their follow ups and be able to target prospects key interests.

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Provide Social Sharing options

Marketing is becoming largely social. Consider placing an option for subscribers to bookmark your content or tweet your content on the bottom of your email messages. Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Mixx, Yahoo Buzz and Del.icio.us are just a few of the social bookmarking sites to add to your content. Also consider placing a link to your facebook and LinkedIn pages.

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References

1. DKIM.org: Source: http://www.dkim.org/info/dkim-faq.html
2. Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DKIM
3. Port25 Solutions, Inc.: Port25-Whitepaper-Authentication.pdf
4. Sender Policy Framework: http://www.openspf.org/FAQ/How_does_it_work, http://www.openspf.org/SPF_vs_Sender_ID