How to Keep B-to-B E-mail From Getting Caught in Filters

Business-to-business marketers face a particularly thorny problem getting their marketing e-mail delivered. Many companies’ filtering technology halts marketing e-mail indiscriminately before employees even see it. So how can marketers get messages through to employees who have signed up for their e-mailings?

Corporate filters typically rely on content scans, such as header, subject line and copy, as well as blacklists. Unfortunately, there’s no way to reliably predict the filtering techniques used at any given company, nor is there a way to know precisely how much e-mail has been filtered out.

But the following techniques can help a B-to-B marketer work around filters to ensure better deliverability of e-mail to business customers.

*Get permission. Make sure your customers are given a choice to opt in to the most relevant communication and that they grant explicit permission to receive it.

*Reinforce relevancy. If customers truly believe your communication is relevant to them, they’re much more likely to advocate for it to continue and complain to their company when it’s been filtered. n Be engaging. Make your communications more informational, less sales focused. Find ways to engage your customers in providing feedback on content—for example, ask them to fill out short surveys.

*Monitor response rates. This can help determine the degree of filtering that’s occurring. Open and clickthrough rates are probably your best guides for filter monitoring. Track them closely. Keep an eye on your inactivity rates, too.

*Request repeat permission. Many online publications have learned that asking customers to periodically re-subscribe to your newsletter provides both continued permission and a barometer of receipt.

*Alert customers. Mention there’s a possibility the communications they’ve signed up to receive may not reach them. This message should be conveyed at sign-up and in all subsequent e-mail notifications. Since the e-mail used to convey the message may be filtered itself, it’s important that other means of communication—in-person, telephone, direct mail—be employed as well.

*Encourage complaints.Ask customers to register complaints with their information technology department if e-mail they desire to receive is being filtered or to inquire about their company’s filtering procedures and how they can ensure receipt.

*Capture alternative data. The good news for the B-to-B marketer is that business customers are generally willing to provide more contact data, especially if the e-mail has strong relevance to their job. The bad news is that this data is all tied to their company and there’s no link to personal contact information. It’s time to change that.

*Ask for personal contact information. Requesting a personal e-mail address as an optional contact method is one way to circumvent filtering at the workplace. Tie the use of the alternative address to your monitoring of customer inaction, which might signal filtering (no survey response, no open or clickthrough activity, etc.).

*Provide conspicuous notice. A well-crafted, clearly visible message on filtering at the point of data capture will help build customer awareness and receptivity to providing the personal information requested.

*Monitor performance. In addition to tracking response rates and encouraging customer feedback, some companies specifically poll customers to determine receipt or non-receipt of e-mail communications.

*Share the responsibility. All e-mail marketers have a stake in this issue. Some filter out their own employees’ e-mail. Marketers need to find out what their own companies are doing, and then challenge their associates in IT to perform responsible e-mail filtering.

*While acknowledging that they have the right to manage their own servers, corporate executives need to be told that indiscriminate filtering poses a risk to legitimate company-to-company communications. Like marketers, business executives need to be sensitized to their stake in the outcome. Industry trade publications are a good way to reach these two groups.

*IT directors should be taught the best filtering practices. They must be made aware of how some blacklist providers compile and manage their lists and why their use is inadvisable. IT management can be reached directly via industry publications, or indirectly through marketers and managers at their companies.

Dave Lewis is vice president of deliverability management and ISP relations at e-mail marketing provider Digital Impact, San Mateo, CA.