With an email newsletter, you have many different items to manage in terms of newsletter delivery and getting subscribers to read it. First comes the technical aspects of your newsletter so that it actually gets into your subscribers’ email boxes and next are the personal aspects of your newsletter so you create a relationship with your potential readers.

Technical

1. Do not use words in the subject line that set off SPAM filters. Or ALL CAPS! know, I know, we keep saying this—but this is the easiest way to for you to make sure your newsletter gets read. Words to avoid:

   • Free

   • Income

   • Guarantee

   • Check

   • Money

2. Do not send your newsletter to email addresses that repeatedly bounce. ISP servers have many ways of identifying your email as SPAM and one of them is repetitive emailing to bad email addresses. Don’t worry if you are a subscriber of our email newsletter service, we automatically remove hard bounces for you.

Personal

1. Remember to check the email inbox that the newsletters are sent from. There may be email requests ifrom existing clients for service of their policy or emails from new clients requesting appointments or answers to questions. You may even have some Unsubscribe requests. Ignoring these shows that you are not accessible and creates an impression that you are not professional.

2. Be very clear when writing your subject line. You may have to get creative to avoid SPAM words but you have to create a subject line that clearly explains the content within the newsletter and gets people interested. Your subject line should tell your readers why they want to read your newsletter.

3. Do use an easy-to-understand From email address. Don’t try anything cute or creative like Insnewlttr4you@server.com. Instead, choose something simple like: newsletter@youragency.com. This makes your agency easy to recognize and ensures that you don’t end up in the junk folder.

Have you ever had one of those days when your email inbox is ominously…silent? You realize around 1PM that you haven’t received any emails all day. You think about how odd that is, and proceed to compulsively click the “Get Mail” button on your email program. If you’re really desperate, you resort to accessing another email account and sending yourself a test email…just to make sure it’s working. You do this because you know how intangible the email process is—so doesn’t that make you wonder what could go wrong with your email newsletter?

Spam Emails

While ultimately the recipient’s email server will make the determination on whether your email is spam or not, there are some preventive steps you can take beforehand:

• Avoid using spammy words like free, guaranteed, etc.  And ALL CAPS is a big no-no!
• Maintain an up to date, permission-based mailing list. Don’t assume that you have permission to market to someone via email because they were a client 5 years ago.  If you send your newsletter to people that haven’t granted you permission to do so, there’s a greater chance they’ll hit that little spam button in their email program.  The more recipients that hit the spam button, the worse your email reputation. Similarly, if someone asks to be removed from your mailing list, do so immediately.

Blocked Emails

Some email servers graciously block emails from addresses that do not appear in their client’s email address book. This means your newsletter may show up in their SPAM file even if you haven’t done anything to set off the SPAM filters.

Avoid this by: Asking your subscribers to add your email address to their address book when they sign up for your newsletter.

Bounced Emails

At some point in our emailing lives, we’ve all gotten that error email that says one of our recipients couldn’t be found so the email couldn’t be delivered. This is called a bounce because it means your email never got into the box you wanted it to go to and it just bounced right out of the email server and back to you.

Avoid this by: It is possible that the subscriber gave an invalid email address or that their email box is full. Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do about this but remove their email address from your list. Before you do so, make sure you do not have an error in the email address. Some common errors include:

• a comma instead of a dot

• a misspelled name

• a space instead of an underscore

• .com instead of .org (or vice versa)

If you aren’t keeping your clients happy and informed, there are thousands of other agents waiting in the wings to fill in for you. The one trick up most successful agent’s sleeves is building loyalty. When you work to create client loyalty, you take action that keeps clients happy with your work and the information you provide and makes them say “not interested” when approached by other agents. One of the easiest and most effective ways to create loyalty with your clients is to offer a newsletter.

1. Newsletters provide professional and informative content.

   We’ve said it before, we’re saying it now—and chances are we’ll say it again later. Content is king on a website, blog or newsletter. If you aren’t giving your readers content that informs and engages, you are going to breed contempt instead of loyalty.

2. Newsletters show how dependable you are.

   Believe it or not if you set a schedule for your newsletter releases, your clients will notice. When you fail to deliver on that schedule—they’ll notice that too. By making yourself dependable in a small way, you show that you will be dependable in more important matters as well.

3. Newsletters give you a platform for communication when times are tough.

   Clients are likely to be fearful when there are negative news stories about insurance companies—even if their insurer is not mentioned. It’s almost impossible to call all clients every day something happens that might concern them. A newsletter allows you to keep in touch with clients during the bad times, choose articles that will calm their nerves, and shows that you have the courage and dedication to deal with the issues head on.

4. Newsletters separate you from your competition.

   Not all agents or agencies offer a newsletter to their clients. In fact, some agents have very little, if any, communication with their clients after they sell a policy. Many of your clients will have dealt with this type of agent in the past and will be grateful for your level of communication and accessibility via newsletters. Not only will that help keep them loyal, but it’s something they’ll tell their friends about when they complain about never hearing from their agent.