Did you know there’s a secret elite club in the email marketing world? I’m serious! This club has access to over two billion mailboxes and makes sure the bouncer at the door always leads you through the front door and into your subscribers’ inboxes (and you don’t even have to tip him.)
“Join our certified email whitelist, and watch as your inbox placement and response rates go through the roof.” – Return Path.
That’s the secret club. EmailDirect will always be there for you to guide your program with best practice and marketing advice as well as monitor your delivery using internal and 3rd party tools to ensure you are getting the best delivery for your program. Heck, that’s why we make sure you have a dedicated Email Marketing Consultant for each and every one of you. I enjoy seeing such an array of industries using Email Marketing and over time have seen this sharpen my sixth sense of successful marketing programs (as well as what not to do!) But enough talk about me and my colleagues, in addition to our dedication to your continued success, another great tool to have in your marketing arsenal is to join Return Path’s coveted Certification Program.
The Stats on Certification:
By joining the most respected whitelist in the industry, you will immediately see higher inbox placement rates by certifying your dedicated IP address. This certified whitelist has the largest participation covering more than two billion inboxes worldwide. Your mail will be delivered with images automatically turned on through Windows Hotmail and Yahoo!, which in turn will kick up your click-through-rates resulting in higher conversions. You are automatically on the express highway to pass through several popular spam filters that ISPs use to filter their mail such as Spam Assassin and Cloudmark. Your program will return less false positives which cause unfair blocks and categorize you alongside spammers when you are anything but!
To join this program you will need to see if you qualify by filling out a quick application here as the first step. If you are given the secret handshake the next step is to review your email practices and habits as well as make sure you are compliant with all applicable laws (which we make sure you always are at EmailDirect.) If they like your answers after the interview we will make sure you have a dedicated IP address and properly configured custom domain as they require. After a few more secret knocks and handshakes you will become an official member of the elite whitelist club! Congratulations!
One more thing! Go ahead and put that pool on hold you’ve been thinking about adding to the backyard because the price of joining this club is about the same. 
On hold for only 1 year that is. Allow me to explain how joining Return Path’s Certification Program really is worth the cost. Let’s say you send an annual total of 10 million emails. But within that amount you send 4 million of that annual mail to Hotmail. Your Hotmail Open Rate is at 11%, and by joining [ReturnPath] you immediately see a 2% increase to 13%. Your average monthly Opens just went from 36,666 Opens per month to 43,333 Opens per month (with images on I might add), giving you 80,000+ Opens more each year, and an average of 11,000 more clicks. If only 10% of these “clickers” were to convert and make a purchase at an average of $50 per subscriber, you would collect $55,000 extra each year.
Who knew math could be so much fun! So go ahead and plan for that pool to be put in next year with the addition of a fancy waterfall and custom granite and only the finest pool accessories to go with it. I promise it will be worth the wait!
