The current outbound lead generation climate implies more thorough work with technical email infrastructure if you want your messages delivered, which has its ups and downs. On the pro side – the inboxes (and potentially spam folders as well) will be less noisy and as soon as your messaging is relevant it will be noticed; on the con side – the outreach process becomes even more complicated and time-consuming.
What is email infrastructure?
The email infrastructure encompasses both software and hardware elements that come into play when you compose and send an email. This includes mail servers, agents, and IP addresses, all crucial for ensuring the successful delivery of email campaigns.
Analogously, you can think of email infrastructure as akin to a postal system. It comprises postal offices, sorting staff, delivery services (whether in-house or third-party), and postal carriers who deliver mail to recipients’ addresses. Despite operating over the internet, the structure of email infrastructure bears resemblance to traditional postal services, albeit excluding servers and authentication protocols.
One of the essentials for successful outbound lead generation is having multiple email domains with similar naming (so-called lookalikes) to be able to rotate the mailboxes whenever issues arise. In this bit, we’re going to help you sort everything out and hit the inboxes with a network of lookalikes. Let’s get to it:
Creating The Domains
The domain name is an important indicator of the company you represent, so make them brief and clear. Avoid long names and mind the context of the organization – stick to mentioning your company name or its abbreviation, as it will also influence how the providers’ firewalls will treat your mailboxes.
Also, ward off suspicious wording that would sound spammy in the domain name:
- COMPANYoffer.com
- COMPANYforyou.com
- freeCOMPANY.com and etc.
You can also play around with TLDs (top-level domains), as commonly it’s possible to create some variation without changing the body:
- COMPANY.com
- COMPANY.co
- COMPANY.io and etc.
A couple of additional lookalike suggestions from us: COMPANYco.com; COMPANYgrowth.com; COMPANYteam.com.
Preparation for the Outreach
Okay, so you’ve purchased a bunch of lookalikes and created mailboxes within each of them – are you good to launch the campaigns? Not yet. Now it’s crucial to ensure proper maintenance for those domains, which starts with setting up SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and PTR records and enabling TLS compliance. Sounds like much probably, but it’s easily accessible through your Admin Console.
Getting closer to sending first messages from your new mailboxes start with a warmup. The warmup is an automated process executed through a platform of your choice (there’s a bunch out there) that allows you to build up your domain reputation, thus minimizing the chances of landing in a spam folder.
It’s better to start with 3-5 messages, while every next day you can add 5 extra. As soon as you reach 70-80 warmup messages per day treat it as a top cap. You can maintain this volume for some time but don’t get it dragged, as such practice can harm the domains, just like medication can damage your health if you’re taking it more or for longer than it’s recommended.
Regarding the warmup tools, roughly two categories can be outlined:
- The first that allow you to use custom templates
- The second that utilize canned warmup sequences that are rather neutral in their style
On the launch, the second category can be good enough, but as soon as you’re at the rotation stage – we recommend switching to the first category, as this way the email systems will get used to the most common topics of your campaigns.
Rotation Stage
After a few weeks of warmup, your mailboxes should be ready for the outreach. However, just like with the warmup – start small and grow your effort exponentially. 20-30 messages in a first day with +5 for every next one would allow you to further reach 80-100 daily first contacts without damaging the reputation (still, though, to keep your mailbox safe aim at 50 first contacts per day max).
This means that if you would like to target 5000 people within one month you would need to have at least 5 main domains and 5 backup domains that will be in the rotation queue. If you’d like, you can maintain your backup domains on low-volume warmup in the meantime.
Conduct spam checks at least once a week using products like Glockapps and you will be able to identify the triggers at an early stage and properly address the issues. If the inbox rate of one of your domains is below 85% – put it on active warmup (40-70 daily messages) and replace with one of the backups.
If this rotation practice is not followed chances of your domain reputation degradation are really high, and the longer this problem persists the higher the risk of making it to multiple blocklists. It’s better to avoid such outcomes as after you’re in – it’s too expensive to take the domain name off these databases.
Compliance and Regulations: Adhering to Standards
Compliance with regulations such as GDPR and HIPAA is crucial for email communication. There are certain standards that companies must adhere to in order to protect sensitive data, maintain user privacy, and mitigate legal consequences. GDPR means transparent data processing and reliable security measures for personal data in emails. HIPAA, on the other hand, requires strict safeguards for protected health information that is transmitted via email within the healthcare sector. Failure to do so can result in significant fines and reputational damage. So, it is crucial to align your email infrastructure with these regulations to protect data and ensure compliance.
Enhancing the performance and scalability
Enhancing the performance and scalability of email infrastructure involves several strategies. One straightforward approach is utilizing cloud-based services and implementing horizontal scaling. Horizontal scaling entails adding additional MTAs (Mail Transfer Agents) to the infrastructure, which allows for handling high email volumes by distributing operations.
Additionally, taking advantage of the built-in scalability features provided by many cloud providers can further optimize scalability.
To improve performance, optimizing the testing workflow is recommended as an industry best practice and an effective solution. By streamlining testing processes, organizations can identify and address potential bottlenecks or inefficiencies, thereby enhancing overall performance.
Top five key metrics for email deliverability
One of the metrics you should focus on is the delivery rate, which is very easy to measure. Email delivery rate is a percentage of the emails that were successfully delivered to recipients’ inboxes and didn’t bounce.
The point is the inbox placement rate. It determines the percentage of emails that were delivered to the recipient’s main inbox rather than spam or chan folder. The inbox placement rate may mean that the content you send is irrelevant you have a bad IP or domain reputation or you’ve sent messages to invalid email addresses. However, you can always increase it by following these few steps:
- always validate the email addresses;
- group your target;
- delete inactive contacts;
- engage with prospects to warm them up before outreach
Сonclusion:
In conclusion, building and maintaining a robust email infrastructure is essential for effective outbound lead generation. By conducting regular spam checks, adhering to rotation practices, and prioritizing long-term maintenance efforts, you can ensure high inbox rates and preserve the reputation of your email domains. For those who may need additional assistance, professional support is available to provide guidance and expertise in optimizing email campaigns for maximum deliverability and engagement. By implementing these best practices and leveraging the support of industry experts, you can drive success in your outbound lead generation efforts and achieve your business goals.
At SalesNash, we recognize that crafting effective meeting request emails is just the initial step in achieving networking success. Our expertise lies in Prospect Research and Appointment Setting, guaranteeing that your outreach endeavors are precisely tailored to engage with the appropriate contacts. Contact us today to discover how we can assist you further.