Welcome to your Friday Quick Tip...

My apologies. It's not the quickest tip I've ever had:

My emails were heading to spam. Here's what I did about it…

For a while, I was suspecting that a significant number of my emails (non-marketing email - these are my domain-based emails to clients and brands - but the trickle-down effect will eventually bleed into my marketing emails) were landing in my clients and subscribers' spam filters.

So, a few weeks ago on a dreary Monday morning felt like the perfect time to tackle this very annoying issue. Here’s what I did.

1. I went into my domain host (Namecheap) and checked to see if I had any alerts in my Email DNS section. The place in my domain dashboard that will tell me one or more of my records weren't working and therefore my emails were not as deliverable as I wanted them to be.

2. I sure did have an alert! It was telling me that I needed to update my MX and SPF records with my server. I use Squarespace as something called a Nameserver - all of my emails are routed through there so I'd need to also check Squarespace to make sure everything was in order.

3. So, I went over to my Squarespace account and into my Domains and checked the 3 records in question. They were exactly as they should have been. So, back over to my domain host, Namecheap, I went.

4. I now needed Namecheap’s help to resolve this as I was at my limit of knowledge. So, I called up their live chat and got their help.

I’ll pause here to talk about why it’s really important to me to pay a little bit more for chat service, as it’s a valuable piece to my business. Namecheap has never been anything but amazing in its service. This is where I buy my domains from and host my emails. Also, don’t get bogged down with the Squarespace piece in this post. It's overwhelming to think about how many directions I was heading in. It doesn't matter. That's not the point of this quick tip.

5. The unfortunate result was that everything was perfect. All records were in place, they were accurate and I had the highest spam filter available on my account and it was working. Namecheap double checked this to be true and told me to go on my merry way and just let them know if it was getting worse.

The purpose of this story is…It is getting harder and harder to get your marketing emails delivered into readers’ inboxes.

Finally, here's your Quick Tip: Beat the spam folder and start with a well-oiled domain-based email service provider. Those records get dropped through no fault of your own from time to time. Check in with your domains. Make sure you don't have any alerts and when your spidey senses are tingling that your emails are struggling to be delivered, pay attention to it. Get to know your domain hosting service and how they can help you keep your emails landing in inboxes.

That might seem like an oversimplification, but it's a really important place to start. I'll be back next Friday with what happens next. What did I do to make sure that as many of my emails were landing in inboxes. This is the start of Quick Tip: Operation Stay Out Of The Spam Folder.

Happy Friday,

Holly

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