Getting emails sent from your website is becoming a trickier and trickier business.
More-and-more email providers are tagging these emails as spam, even to the point of not having those emails show up in the spam folder. This includes emails sent to the user as well as email sent to you to notify you that someone has tried to contact you and what not.
This could result in missed appointments, missed opportunities to work with potential clients.
However, there are things that you can do to mitigate those issues.
- Stop using Yahoo, GMail, etc., Transactional Email Services – Services such as SendGrid or Mandrill can help deliver emails to the inbox. They work with the various email providers like Google, Microsoft, etc. to ensure that their emails get to people’s inboxes. While they do make every attempt to ensure emails get delivered, it’s obviously still not a guarantee.
- Avoid Tell-a-Friend – Many sites have functionality such that a user can tell their friends about a particular piece of content or product that that user might be interested in. The typical pattern is that the site will make it look like the email is coming from the user rather than the site. This can cause deliverability issues since the email is being delivered from your site and not being sent by the actual user.I recommend that if you would like that kind of functionality to have the email come from you and within the body of the email mention which friend recommended that particular piece of content or product. Of course, this is a little less personalized versus the traditional method.
- Do Regular Testing – When was the last time you went onto your website and used your contact us form to see if it’s still working? Your website and the internet in general is composed of many moving parts.
There is the site itself, the server it sits on, the hosting company, the vagaries of sending information through the internet, the recipient’s mail server, etc.
(I’m sure that you are jumping for joy from me telling you have one more thing to do on a regular basis.)
Customer service is key in this day and age. Missing messages from your customers is a good way to get them to go elsewhere. Ensuring that you receive the message when they contact via your website is key within that.
Adhering to the above items will help ensure that you get the message when a client is trying to contact you.