Email Best Practices

You invest significant time in identifying the right candidates for recruitment. Ensure your messages reach them by following email best practices for recruiting campaigns. To run a successful recruitment campaign, you must take action. There are also things that the recipients can do. 

Segment Your Lists

Segment lists into demographic categories, such as age range or gender, to ensure each recipient receives content tailored to them rather than a generic message. Content not tailored to specific audiences may lower overall response rates due to a lack of personalization.

Scrub Your Lists

Fuel Cycle partners with providers who scan your recruitment emails for troublesome emails that may be spam traps or "honeypots" and those prone to reporting spam. These actors may damage your email reputation and reduce delivery rates. The general idea is to use clean lists (safelisting) and remove anything that could harm you (denylisting).

Remove any invalid addresses or members who may have unsubscribed from previous mailings, which can lead to higher bounce rates if not addressed beforehand.

Characters that may contribute to invalid addresses and require review before Email List upload are as follows:

• Email domains should not include the following: 
  `~!@#$%^&*()+=[{]}\|:;"'<>,/?
  Domains can include symbols such as: 
  -__ . (hyphen, underscore, period)
• The @ symbol is only used before the email domain (such as gmail.com).
• Delete all empty columns to the right and below any Email List fields in your file if miscellaneous characters negatively affect the bounce rate.

After scrubbing your list and uploading your emails to Fuel Cycle, our platform performs a secondary scrub of your data as a final check and should not be used as your sole data-scrubbing method.

An email distribution will terminate for any of the following, contributing to 5% of the total sent:

• Bounced emails
• Domains marked as spam
• Emails not delivered

This is a proactive effort to ensure emails do not negatively contribute to the community email domain. It is a signal to the Fuel Cycle team that the list needs a review.

If you send a recruitment and the email status is marked Terminated, please get in touch with the Solutions team via the Answer Bot in the bottom-right corner. The team will run the list through an additional vendor to better assess email deliverability and remove any remaining domains contributing negatively to the recruitment email bounce rate.

Limit Links

According to SafeMailer, emails should only contain 2–3 links to avoid triggering spam filters. However, it's important to note that the optimal number of links can vary depending on the audience, the email's content, and the campaign's goals. Conducting A/B tests can help determine the optimal number of links to include in emails.

Match From and Reply-to Addresses

We get it! It's cool to look like you're receiving an email from the CEO, but replies go to a dead-end marketing email address. Make sure your email 'reply to' and 'from' email addresses match. It sounds silly, but this is a key indicator of spam.

Email Preview Text

Current trends show that more emails are opened on mobile devices than on desktops. When recipients open your email, they see your email address, the subject line, and a snippet of your content known as preview text or preheader text. 

Most mobile email apps show a preview of around 30 to 55 characters. The shift to mobile has made preview text in emails important for anyone using email to increase response rates.

You will be able to add up to 150 characters to a preview text in Fuel Cycle.

Start Sending Slowly

"Warm up" your email server by gradually increasing sending volumes over time. Hence, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are less likely to flag your messages as spam or block them from being sent.

• This process should be done slowly with low-volume sends, increasing over time until the desired levels are reached. Batches of no more than 15-20,000 emails are a good place to start.
• Starting with small batches will help build trust between you and ISPs and, gradually, allow more of your messages through without any issues.
• If some time has passed (approximately 2 months or more) since your last email campaign, start again with small batches to work towards reestablishing rapport between you and ISPs.Keep Your Lists Scrubbed

Carry out regular maintenance on your lists by removing inactive members; this ensures they remain relevant and useful for analysis, rather than being skewed by outdated information in survey results or other reports.

Recruitment emails should be sent regularly, with incentives offered when possible; this helps attract new participants and encourages existing participants to stay engaged with their studies or projects over time.

Keep Your Emails Out of Spam Folders

Here are some general best practices to help protect against unexpected spam filtering and improve your email deliverability.

Familiarize yourself with Fuel Cycle's anti-spam policy.

To ensure that your emails reach your subscribers' inboxes, it is important to take certain measures to authenticate your traffic with a two-pronged approach: 

• Firstly, you should verify your email domain through email authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC (if you send through Fuel Cycle, we take care of this for you). 
• Secondly, you should encourage subscribers to add you to their address book. This will help improve your email deliverability rates, reduce the likelihood of your emails being marked as spam, and ensure that your messages are always visible to your intended recipients.

When sending emails to your subscribers, it's important to only reach out to those who have specifically signed up for your mailing list and have engaged with your content in the last 12 months. This ensures that your emails reach people who are interested and invested in your brand and helps avoid spam complaints or unsubscribing.

It's important to set an expected frequency for your emails so that your subscribers know when to expect to hear from you.

Additionally, you should ensure the content of your emails is focused and relevant to your subscribers. This means tailoring your messaging to their interests and needs and avoiding generic or overly promotional language.

Avoid using spam trigger words (full list here). Common terms you should avoid (that we see a lot):

• Earn
• Order
• Offers
• Discount
• Price
• Click here
• Click below
• Click
• Prize
• Winner
• Won
• Win
• Get
• For you
• Urgent
• Bonus

Test your email (with headers) using the following tools:

• Spam Analyzer from MXToolbox
• Free Email Spam Test from IP Quality Score

Beware of Spam Traps

Spam traps are email addresses created solely to identify and filter out unwanted messages, such as those sent by spammers or recruiters. By using spam traps, service providers can ensure only good messages reach the right people.

To protect yourself from inadvertently creating an environment where your recruitment emails get blocked by potential spam traps, make sure you take steps such as verifying that each member wants to participate before sending them anything.

Recipients' Actions

• Ask users to save you as a contact to show the provider that the recipient wants to hear from you.
• Ask users to move your emails to the Primary Inbox (if Gmail) so Gmail's algorithm knows they want to hear from you.

SMS Messaging Best Practices

Mobile carriers, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and trade associations have established rules for the text marketing industry to ensure the safety and satisfaction of their customers. To achieve this, mobile carriers are closely monitoring all text message traffic and implementing filtering and blocking measures as necessary. To ensure your text messages are delivered smoothly to your supporters, it is advisable to follow the following points.

Only Message Opted-In Supporters

Obtaining prior express consent from the individuals you are attempting to contact is important. Your supporters should be aware of the types of message content they have agreed to receive and the frequency at which they should expect to receive them. The most convenient way to accommodate this is to add mobile phone opt-in elements to your recruitment.

Avoid Controversial Topics

The acronym SHAFT (sex, hate, alcohol, firearms, and tobacco) serves as a reminder to avoid including these topics in your messages or call-to-action. These subjects are considered highly inappropriate and can result in an immediate ban if included.

Avoid Shortened Links

Carriers typically block messages with shortened links from providers like bit.ly and tinyurl. 

Stay (Content) Relevant

When sending text campaigns, make sure that the messages are relevant to your organization. Avoid sending messages that fall outside the scope of your organization's programs and activities, as this could lead supporters to report them as spam. If your messages are reported as spam, mobile carriers may block them. As always, consult your attorney for clarification on any potential legal issues.

Pay Attention to Time Zones

You must comply with regulations and best practices for sending text messages. Be mindful of time zones and send messages only during normal daytime hours for your supporters, regardless of their time zones.

Country Support

Fuel Cycle supports text messaging to US supporters with 10-digit phone numbers. Do not include the 1 before the area code.