{"id":28041,"date":"2024-02-02T12:26:10","date_gmt":"2024-02-02T20:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/writersfunzone.com\/blog\/?p=28041"},"modified":"2024-02-02T12:26:10","modified_gmt":"2024-02-02T20:26:10","slug":"important-email-marketing-issues-for-2024-by-ricardo-fayet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/writersfunzone.com\/blog\/2024\/02\/02\/important-email-marketing-issues-for-2024-by-ricardo-fayet\/","title":{"rendered":"Important Email Marketing Issues for 2024 by Ricardo Fayet"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Important<\/a>Some very important email marketing issues for 2024 that affect all authors by the co-founder of Reedsy<\/a>, Ricardo Fayet. Read and take action today.<\/p>\n

Take it away, Ricardo!<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Two weeks ago, I shared some predictions<\/a> with you for what 2024 might have in store for authors when it comes to marketing their books.<\/p>\n

In that email, I purposefully left out one major change that\u2019s going to affect all authors\u2026 starting tomorrow (\"\ud83d\ude31\"). [Editor’s note: That’s today, Feb. 2, 204.]<\/p>\n

I did so because it\u2019s not really a \u201cprediction\u201d \u2014 it\u2019s something that has been planned and advertised for months.<\/p>\n

If you have a mailing list (as every author should), you\u2019ll already know what I\u2019m talking about: DMARC.<\/p>\n

To put it in layman\u2019s terms: as of today [Feb. 1st 2024], Google and Yahoo will enforce a new policy to protect their user\u2019s inboxes by better filtering out the spam\/junk emails we all receive every day.<\/p>\n

Under this new policy, any person or company sending bulk emails (e.g. everyone with a mailing list sending regular newsletters) will need to meet four specific criteria for their emails to go through to their recipients\u2019 inboxes:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Include a one-click unsubscribe in all emails,<\/li>\n
  2. Keep a spam report rate below 0.3%,<\/li>\n
  3. Send all emails from a domain with a valid DMARC policy, and<\/li>\n
  4. Authenticate all emails with the SPF and DKIM\u202fvalidation methods.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The first two are pretty straightforward if you\u2019re familiar with email marketing. DMARC, SPF, and DKIM, on the other hand, might sound like total gibberish to you (as they did to me just a few weeks ago).<\/p>\n

    In this post, I\u2019ll briefly explain what these are all about \u2014 but be warned, in order to get a full grasp of DMARC, you\u2019ll need to do a lot of additional reading (I\u2019ll provide a link).<\/p>\n

    Alternatively, you can always hire a professional website designer<\/a> to take care of this for you.<\/p>\n

    What the heck are DMARC, SPF, and DKIM?<\/h2>\n

    DMARC stands for Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance.<\/p>\n

    That probably doesn\u2019t help you much, so let\u2019s focus on the first letter: DMARC is a domain-based<\/em> policy.<\/p>\n

    This means that, from now on, you should send all your newsletters, automations, and other emails aimed at readers from a verified domain email address<\/em>.<\/p>\n

    In other words, you can\u2019t just use a free yourname @ gmail.com email address any longer to send bulk email through an Email Marketing Software (e.g. MailerLite, ConvertKit, MailChimp, etc.). Instead, you need to:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Own\/buy a domain,<\/li>\n
    2. Authenticate your domain with your Email Marketing Software, and<\/li>\n
    3. Create a DMARC policy for your domain.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      What a DMARC policy essentially does is tell Google, Yahoo, et al what to do<\/em> with emails sent from an email address registered to your domain.<\/p>\n

      At a bare minimum, you want to make sure that your DMARC policy instructs them to let all these emails<\/em> through and put them into your readers\u2019 inboxes.<\/p>\n

      This, however, opens you up to potential scams or impersonation using your domain name.<\/p>\n

      If you want to be protected for those, you need to set a DMARC policy that only lets emails through if they are authenticated with the SPF and DKIM methods.<\/p>\n

      SPF and DKIM are essentially two email cybersecurity protocols that have been around for a while to authenticate the provenance of emails.<\/p>\n

      What they do is check whether an incoming email comes from a tool that has been authorized by its domain\u2019s administrator.<\/p>\n

      Remember step 2 above? \u201cAuthenticate your domain with your Email Marketing Software.\u201d<\/p>\n

      When you do this, you effectively authorize<\/em> your Email Marketing Software to send emails on your domain\u2019s behalf.<\/p>\n

      If properly set up, all emails sent through your EMS account will successfully pass SPF\/DKIM verification.<\/p>\n

      Whatever the Email Marketing Software you use, they\u2019ll have probably contacted you repeatedly in the past few weeks with instructions on how to do this.<\/p>\n

      Okay, so what do I need to do?<\/h2>\n

      Now you have a better understanding of how DMARC works, you can get started on the technicalities of it.<\/p>\n

      Setting a DMARC policy is achieved by editing the DNS records of your domain.<\/p>\n

      If you know how to do this, then follow the links below to do it on your own \u2014 it shouldn\u2019t take you more than an hour or two:<\/p>\n