Prevent Your Email From Being Pushed Aside or Blocked
With the ever-present nuisance of spam and threats of cyber attacks, email services continue to add features and protections. Some of these will prevent your email from being delivered, and others will prevent your message from being seen.
Here are 3 actions you need to take so your messages arrive and are seen.
1 Ensure Your Emails Validate Properly
Yahoo, Google, and other email services now require validation for emails. Initially targeting volume marketers, the validation checks can prevent your emails from reaching their destination. To ensure your emails reach your recipients, you must have DomainKey Identified Mail (DKIM) and Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC) protocols in place.
Our eBook, Improve Your Email and Deliverability and Security in Five Steps, provides five steps you can take to ensure that your business and marketing emails reach your intended recipients. These steps also help protect you from costly and damaging email identity and business email compromise cyber attacks.
2 Use a Marketing Email Service
Google, Microsoft, and other email services limit the number of emails you can send individually and as an organization. Additionally, these email services lack the controls required by the CAN-SPAM Act and other regulations.
Marketing email services include the necessary controls, including address publishing, unsubscribe links, and email preferences. They also provide tools for managing contacts, lists, and content.
Using a marketing email service enables you to send bulk emails without being flagged as a spammer. You can protect and maintain your email reputation by using the services to manage your email marketing and response campaigns.
3 Include AI Trigger Words In Your Content
Microsoft Outlook includes a Focus Inbox, while Google Workspace offers Priority Inbox. With iOS 18, Apple will auto-filter email into four segmented inboxes: Primary, Transactions, Updates, and Promotions.
With artificial intelligence (AI), the content of your email determines whether it lands in the primary inbox that people check most, or a secondary folder that may go unnoticed. Messages will be prioritized when they include phrases with:
- Contextual Relevance: Phrases that indicate important actionable content
- User Behavior: Messages that are typically opened and acted upon more frequently
- NLP Recognition: Phrases commonly used in critical communications, as they signal priority
- Transactional Nature: Content commonly used in transactional messages
In addition to identifying these emails for the focus, priority, or primary inbox views, the AI engines will prioritize messages to ensure recipients see them first.
AI trigger words and phrases should be included but need not be the focus of your message: Sample AI trigger words and phrases include:
Registration Confirmed | Preview | Meeting Invite |
Exclusive Invitation | Important Update | X Day Left |
New Feature | Subscription Details | Action Required |
Invitation Enclosed | Event Registration | Priority Access |
Add to Calendar | Event Details |
Using AI trigger words will improve the visibility of your emails. Expect that preferred phrases will evolve and change over time.
Your Next Steps
Our Cloud Advisors are ready to help you review your email service configuration. Contact us or schedule time with one of our Cloud Advisors to learn more.
Your Next Steps
Having these five cybersecurity standards in place represents a no-nonsense minimum that protects your business and can improve your cybersecurity coverage and premiums.
Our eBook, Cyber Security Requirements for Cyber Insurance, dives deeper to define basic, preferred, and best practices. You can, and should, scale your cybersecurity to meet your business’s specific risks, priorities, and budget.
We offer multiple assessments to help you understand and benchmark your current cybersecurity.
- Rapid Security Assessment
- Cyber Insurance Risk Assessment
These assessments are free with a Referral Code. Contact us or schedule time with one of our Cloud Advisors to learn more and obtain your code.
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About the Author
Allen Falcon is the co-founder and CEO of Cumulus Global. Allen co-founded Cumulus Global in 2006 to offer small businesses enterprise-grade email security and compliance using emerging cloud solutions. He has led the company’s growth into a managed cloud service provider with over 1,000 customers throughout North America. Starting his first business at age 12, Allen is a serial entrepreneur. He has launched strategic IT consulting, software, and service companies. An advocate for small and midsize businesses, Allen served on the board of the former Smaller Business Association of New England, local economic development committees, and industry advisory boards.