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Notice! Google and Yahoo! have announced new guidelines for email senders

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Nuevos requisitos de Google y Yahoo

Did you know that Google and Yahoo! have just changed the game? Both companies have announced new requirements for bulk email senders.

But what is the point? It is a way to fight against internet scams and the dreaded spam, through security protocols, and low spam rate strategies, among others. It will be implemented from February 2024. In today’s article, we will tell you about the new requirements for email senders. Take note!

What Google and Yahoo propose to prevent spam

Google and Yahoo! are offering us a fresh take on ease and security for 2024. In keeping with their privacy and data protection rules, both email providers have released new guidelines designed to shield senders from unsolicited mass emails.

According to Gmail, their new plan will take effect in the upcoming year with the primary goal of preventing scammers and worthless emails. In order to avoid being impacted by these changes, senders who send more than 500 messages in a day must incorporate the most recent standards.

Gmail will require email authentication when sending emails to Gmail accounts.  It will also require a quick and easy unsubscribe process, forcing bulk senders to offer their users a quick and secure way to unsubscribe.

As to the statement made by Neil Kumaran, the Group Product Manager of Gmail Security & Trust, a lot of bulk senders fail to configure their systems correctly, which gives away their location to attackers. Gmail has concentrated on sender validation, one of the most crucial facets of email security, in order to resolve this problem.

Yahoo follows closely. The company’s goal is to provide secure bulk email, ensuring that recipients receive interesting messages and that the rest of the emails are left in the spam bin. 

In order to do this, Yahoo announced that by 2024 senders will need to enable one-click unsubscribe, authenticate their emails using widely accepted authentication standards, and promote the distribution of user-valued content.

New guidelines for Google and Yahoo email

We must separate these additional requirements into two groups: those for all senders and those for individuals who send more than 5,000 messages daily, in order to gather more information about them.

Requirements for all senders

1. E-mail authentication

The goal of this policy is to stop and prevent cyberattacks like phishing and domain spoofing. Businesses that send emails to Yahoo or Gmail must use the Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM) or Sender Policy Framework (SPF) methods of authentication.

Keep in mind that SPF is an email authentication system that works to stop online fraud. It is feasible to confirm that approved email servers are communicating on behalf of a certain domain by using SPF records. For the benefit of both user and business security, an SPF record helps senders establish a better reputation and deters spammers who send emails pretending to be senders.

2. Low SPAM rates

Spam is still one of the main problems of email marketing campaigns. Nonetheless, with these new adjustments, businesses might see greater outcomes; nonetheless, everything will depend on the qualifications of the users.

This implies that your communications may end up in the SPAM folder if receivers report them as SPAM at a rate higher than the recently mandated 0.3%.

For senders with more than 5000 messages per day

1. E-mail authentication

Companies need to have Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM) methods of authentication, just like with the first category.

2. Establish a DMARC policy

Newest in email authentication is Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance (DMARC). It guarantees that valid emails are appropriately verified against SPF and DKIM protocols and prevents fraudulent activity coming from domains that might seem to be under your company’s control.

With this technology, we can make the “from” header of the domain give us confidence. Keep in mind that, Gmail controls the DMARC quarantine policy, thus there is no Gmail impersonation in the “from” headers.

3 – Add the new CNAME record

The CNAME (Canonical Name) is a resource record in the Domain Name System (DNS) used to associate a domain name with another domain name.

According to Gmail and Yahoo policies, it is necessary to strongly authenticate the senders from which we send in order to prevent our mailings from becoming spam, to maintain security, and to provide recipients with a spam-free mailbox.

4. Provide quick and easy unsubscribe

For both Google and Yahoo!, this is one of the most important things you can do. Your marketing emails should include a one-step or two-step unsubscribe method.

To save time and expenses, your email marketing campaigns should include have an unsubscribe link in the message body.

5. Stay below the spam threshold

The purpose of these new regulations is to shield recipients from unsolicited or irrelevant communications. Due to this issue, Google sets a cap on the amount of spam that gets through.

Senders will have to maintain their spam complaints below 0.1% as of February 2024.

What do these changes mean?

There will soon be changes to email marketing, as we have seen. These new regulations aim to safeguard consumers against potential online fraud and theft while also guaranteeing that content is supplied with great value to the sender.

Although it’s crucial to note that these modifications may significantly affect your transmitting capabilities, they will go into effect in February 2024.

emBlue can help you

We recognize that email is an essential component of any marketing plan, but don’t be scared to use it! At emBlue, we provide you with the means to effortlessly set up the modifications, enabling you to maintain secure and spam-free inboxes.

We have a team of experts available around-the-clock to assist you with configuring SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and CNAME authentication records.

Additionally, you can send emails, push notifications, pop-ups, and more via emBlue’s omnichannel CRM.

Additionally, we have a brand-new feature called “Dynamic Segments” that enables your company to build a highly customized user experience by utilizing AI and machine learning to better understand your clients and produce hyper-personalized messaging.

Categories Articles, Digital Strategiesby

5 incentives to keep your customers engaged in 2023

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5 incentives TO keep your customers engaged in 2023

Even though gaining new customers is very important to develop a successful company, customer retention is one of the quickest ways to achieve such vital business goals.

According to a report by Invespcro, attracting new customers is five times more expensive than retaining one. Moreover, selling to an existing customer is 60-70% more likely than selling to a new prospect. It also states that increasing the customer retention rates by only 5% increases profits by 25% to 95%.

Keeping your customers engaged and loyal to your company is key to reaching new heights in the market. Fortunately, retaining every one of them is not completely necessary. Only a small fraction of customer retention would mean a huge grow in sales.

If your company has reached the phase in which it needs to focus on retaining customers and increasing their loyalty to your brand, it is advisable to start developing and implementing special strategies to achieve these objectives.

How to do so in 2023? In this post, let’s have a look at the best practices to implement a great incentives program. Later, we’ll give you five incentives ideas that will keep your customers engaged and interested in your brand, products, and services.

How should your company implement incentives for engaged customers?

How should your company implement incentives for engaged customers?

If you want to get the most out of an incentive program to retain your most faithful customers, you should look at these recommendations.

Establish a clear objective for your program

What are the reasons why you need an incentive program in your company? These programs are not only about increasing your sales or keeping your clients loyal to you. There are also some neat consequences if you launch a program with a specific objective in mind. For example, incentives may:

  • Promote trials for new services.
  • Increase sales of specific products.
  • Boost awareness of some products and services.
  • Re-engage with customers that left for competition.
  • Increase the number of referrals.

Keep faithful to your brand culture

It’s important for your company to never lose track of its brand culture while developing a new incentive program for engaged customers. In the end, they are not only staying with you because of your products and services. Clients also treasure the values your company offers them each time they undergo another sales process.

Find the correct target for your incentives program

Remember that not every client is at the same stage of the customer journey. For this reason, your program should focus on the most high-value clients, because they are most likely to keep buying from you. This way you will also know which is the best incentive for them and develop a program that fits their needs.

What incentives should your company offer to keep customers engaged?

What incentives should your company offer to keep customers engaged?

Loyalty programs

Let’s start with one of the most common incentives out there. Loyalty programs are an excellent way to treat the most important customers in your portfolio, either VIPs or those who have been around for the longest time.

This incentive encourages them to take specific actions, such as purchases. Through them, clients will earn points which can be redeemed for exclusive rewards. Take into consideration that these perks must be designed according to your clients’ needs to let them feel that future spending will be highly beneficial to them.

Exclusive early access to sales and experiences

Sneak peeks and priority access are great incentives for customers that are invested in your brand and want to be part of the next line of products and services from your company as soon as possible.

Although those who are part of your loyalty program (if you decided to implement one!) should be the first in the line, don’t forget about other customers that may not be part of it, but are interested in your products. Besides, these early access events must be designed as unique experiences, be it online or physical events, and should offer special rewards to those who attended.

Referral programs

Word of mouth is one of the keys to success for any company. Being recommended by your customers is highly profitable. Besides, it increases brand awareness and market positioning.

Referral programs exist to reward those customers who spread the word about your brand and praise your products and services, so why not implement one to let them know your company is thankful? These perks may include discounts, coupons, stackable rewards, free upgrades to services, free software, etc. Just remember to always be on brand, offer valuable rewards, and keep things simple.

Free upgrades

Not everyone will be able to enjoy the multiple plans your software or app may have. However, it’s possible to give them a little taste of your tool’s best features by giving your customers free upgrades.

These are one of the best incentives a tech company can offer to their most loyal clients. They’ll be excited about trying new and hidden features. Besides, offering this reward for completing positive tasks such as feedback surveys, referrals or special events like webinars or focus groups will ensure these people will stay with you for a long time.

Gifts and discounts

These are the quintessential incentives that every company should include in their rosters. Receiving one of them feels special and encourages clients to spend more and keep in touch with your brand on the look for more.Gifts are perfect incentives for customers who have completed certain purchase requirements. These are also perfect during special occasions, such as the company’s anniversary or your client’s birthday. Coupons and discounts are also interesting perks, especially for those who have made their first purchase, subscribe to your newsletter, etc. However, don’t forget to set a discount cut that doesn’t affect your income.

Categories Articles, Digital Strategiesby

4 Real Estate Marketing Ideas for Christmas

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The best time of the year has arrived, that’s right, it’s time to focus on Christmas. Whether you like it or not, it’s here and you have the great challenge of creating a Christmas real estate marketing campaign that stands out not only from your competitors, but also from thousands of advertisements to which your target will be exposed.

Of course, you should start working on the Christmas campaigns now so that it is not too late and you do not lose business opportunities.

Make offers and promotions

Christmas is the best time to launch offers and promotions on your products. I’ll give you some ideas:

Draw tickets for a play or discounts in restaurants in exchange for registering and leaving your data. Then you can make a list with all potential registered customers and start sending them marketing campaigns.

Offer a discount on the price of the property. It is a well-known commercial and marketing action that will always attract the attention of customers.

A Christmas gift card to everyone who enters the premises or lists a property. Again, you can ask for their email to later use it in marketing campaigns.

You can also ask your customers who have bought from you to leave good reviews on Google in exchange for a gift. Having good opinions will bring you new potential customers.

Again, these are just a few ideas. Then each real estate company is a world. Think about the strategy that best suits your strategy and needs.

Send an email marketing campaign

Spread the joy of the Holidays through your newsletter. One of the most effective types of marketing during the Holidays is mass emailing. It is also extremely cheap, and sometimes even free. Remember that with Emblue you can send up to 5000 free emails.

You can invite your subscribers to visit your website and offer an exclusive discount during the Christmas Holidays. As you draft your newsletter, make sure you think outside the box, as you won’t be the only company sending out a Christmas email. Some ideas for you:

Start a countdown before a specific date

Creates the urgency to buy by reminding them that there are only a certain number of days left until a particular date.

Share a list of projects

You can send a list of real estate projects or types of apartments.

Engage your audience with videos and GIFs

These are two engaging forms of content that will get your visitors interested in your email.

Send a Christmas gift

As we saw in the “offers and promotions” you have several options to make your email much more attractive.

You can select and edit HTML themes on BeeFree, they really have a lot of free Christmas email templates.

Or you can also opt for one of the hundreds of free Christmas email marketing templates that you can find on Emblue. Request a demo, choose the one that works best for your campaign and start using it for free.

Create content for social media

Another idea to increase your sales at Christmas is to prepare extra content on social networks.

What actions can you perform?

Prepare a content calendar

This can help you organize holiday promotions and real estate that you want to highlight this holiday season.

Conduct surveys

With this resource you will know what your followers want the most to offer tempting offers that meet their expectations. Take advantage of Instagram stories for this kind of initiative!

Add a bot to your profiles

On these dates, user queries increase considerably. A chatbot can help you automate customer service, improve the user experience and thereby sell more.

Take advantage of the potential of video

Platforms like TikTok or tools like Instagram Reels have become enormously popular. You could take advantage of the video to show the properties, their characteristics, distribution and location.

Create a Christmas landing page

If you really want to have an impact campaign and sell more with your Christmas marketing, create a specific landing page for your offers on your website, where you can list the outstanding properties of the season.

To this page you must drive the traffic of all the promotional marketing campaigns that you carry out.

For your Christmas landing page to be successful, you must make it clear to the client that it is a special Christmas offer, include calls to action that encourage conversion, as well as give reasons why it is a special promotion, highlight the price , if it includes a discount, and the rest of the aspects that differentiate you from the competition.

Give a Christmas touch to the design of this page and use quality photos of the properties, since they considerably influence web conversion rates.

Categories Articles, Digital Strategiesby

Sell more with up selling and cross selling

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Getting new customers is not the only way an online business has when it wants to grow. Up selling and cross selling are ecommerce sales strategies that can also boost growth . Here we explain what it is about.  Up-selling When we up-sell we are improving the sale of the product that the client acquired or … Read more

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What is the customer journey and how to identify its stages

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Do you know the path that your clients travel from when they meet you until they choose you? Do you know all the moments and points of interaction they have with your brand? When we talk about sales, there are different stages that you must identify within the purchase process of your customers, better known as Customer Journey , to provide a better brand experience 🙌

Believe it or not all companies have a Customer Journey, but only some have it well mapped. Many times this path can be so short for the client that it only takes a couple of minutes or so long that it requires months to close the sale, it all depends on the type of product or service you offer.

Providing a good experience has become one of the most important pillars for loyalty , due to the high competitiveness and constant innovation of the market, but what is a Customer Journey? And how can it help you better understand your users? Let’s see 🤓

What is the Customer Journey?

It is said that 70% of the Customer Journey has been completed long before customers arrive at your virtual store . How so ?! We live in the digital age and consumers have at hand all the information they need about the products or services they are looking for.

This allows them to make comparisons between brands and make much smarter decisions , which gives greater relevance to the shopping experience and any added value that brands offer as a differentiator against the competition.

The Customer Journey can be defined as all those stages that our clients go through from the moment they are aware of their need until they acquire our product or service. This model allows us to know your problems and needs in addition to measuring the quality of your shopping experience to keep them with your brand 🔒

How does the customer journey work?

The customer Journey consists of identifying the stages that customers go through when making a purchase or a valuable action for our brand , so being clear about this process will help you understand them and detect opportunities for improvement 🔍

Knowing which events or actions are the most significant within your Customer Journey will also allow you to establish content and strategies that better connect with your customers and positively impact their experience with the ideal message at the right time.

What are the stages of the customer journey?

We can divide the Customer Journey into 5 stages, one for each situation in which potential customers find themselves , both at the level of predisposition and interest. The first 3 phases lead to the buy action and the last 2 to the recommendation, after the sale is completed.

Discovery

At this stage, consumers recognize in themselves a need that they do not know how to satisfy, they feel frustrated and begin to do some research in search of solutions. Here the most important thing is to evaluate the channels that are most relevant to your customers, generate valuable content in them and get your brand to remain present in their mind 🧠

Consideration

Customers want to make the purchase but need to evaluate different options to make a final decision. To achieve this, they will once again carry out a much more specific investigation including specific brands, this with the aim of finding more detailed descriptions and knowing the attributes of their products or services.

All the information that allows them to make a comparison with the competition will be very useful, so having elements that differentiate you from other brands can directly influence the purchase decision of your target audience 🎯

Also having a Marketing Automation strategy can increase your results considerably, since it allows you to identify the actions that customers take in your business and send automatic communications in order to recover abandoned carts and boost your sales 🛒

Purchase

Here customers have already made their decision. This process should be as easy and fast as possible , provide as much information as possible and clarify delivery times if necessary. A plus? Establish return policies.

Including a customer service channel to resolve any inconvenience during the purchase process will also help you convey confidence and security to your consumers at this decisive moment 😉

Retention

Not everything ends with the purchase, the idea is to turn the new client into an ambassador of your brand . You can thank them for their purchase with a personalized email, offer them discount coupons, send them a newsletter with valuable content and exclusive promotions.

Recommendation

Measuring the quality of your customers’ experience and knowing if they were satisfied with your product or service is essential at this stage . Tools like the NPS can help you carry out surveys through banners Popups or Email Marketing campaigns to find out the opinion of your consumers 💬

If their experience was satisfactory, it is very likely that they will buy from you again and recommend you to other users. Remember that social networks and word of mouth are two of the most influential channels in the market , so good management of your post-sale process can have a very positive impact on your brand recognition.

As you will have noticed, Accompanying your clients at each stage within the Customer Journey will allow them to receive the information they need at the right time. However, having a strategy of Marketing Automation can facilitate this process and help you integrate all your channels to create automatic action flows that boost your results 📈

Were you aware of the steps your customers take to purchase your products or services? We encourage you to discover them and propose a marketing strategy for each one. Remember that with emBlue you can stay present at the key points of your customers’ Customer Journey and achieve your company’s objectives faster.

Are you ready to implement a Customer Journey strategy in your business?

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