Email remains the cornerstone of internal communication—the workhorse of professional correspondence. When email fails, however, its effectiveness can come into question. To ensure reliable email deliverability, internal communicators need to know the best practices for sending internal email.
In this article, we will delve into the pivotal matter of internal email deliverability. More specifically, we’ll explore the internal mechanisms that can steer your email from the junk folder back into the heart of the inbox. If you’re facing the issue of internal emails not being delivered, learning more about the issue will ensure the messages you craft are delivered as intended.
Unpacking the Framework: What is Internal Email Deliverability?
Internal email deliverability is the capability of your organization’s emails to reach the inboxes of your audience—your employees.
This involves two primary considerations:
- Technical prowess: This is about checks and balances within your email system or provider. Are your emails structured according to best practices with legitimate sender information?
- Reputation management: Much like your brand image in the consumer world, your “sender reputation” dictates whether your emails are seen as credible or potentially spammy.
The sending strategy’s critical role
Your internal email deliverability is profoundly influenced by your strategy and execution when sending emails. It’s not just about pushing the send button; it’s about doing it right.
Common strategy components include:
- Frequency: Develop consistency by showing up in their inbox often.
- Timing: Pick send times that are most convenient for your reader.
- Segmentation: Ensure your emails get to the right people who need the information.
- Goals: Be strategic with each email to hit specfic goals.
What Causes Internal Email Deliverability Issues?
Understanding the issue of internal emails not being delivered is vital to enacting effective solutions. You might have email deliverability issues if you are seeing any of the following:
- Lots of unsubscribes
- Emails constantly being marked as junk
- Emails ending up in SPAM folders
Seeing any of these could be cause for concern, and worth taking a look into Here are some common culprits of email deliverability issues:
Sending from an external marketing tool
When you’re using a third-party email marketing tool—like Mailchimp and other alternatives—to send internal emails, it might lack the domain authentication necessary to bypass spam filters.
Poor list management
Sending to outdated or improperly maintained email lists can dramatically affect your deliverability. If your recipients are not regularly engaging with your emails, inbox providers may see your emails as less valuable and be more likely to deliver them to the spam or junk folders.
Not only is effective list management crucial for solid email deliverability, it’s also a best practice for email security and privacy; after all, you don’t want to accidentally email former employees’ confidential internal documents!
Why is Deliverability of Internal Emails Important?
Internal email delivery is mission-critical for several reasons, including:
- Sharing company information: There are bits of information that your entire company needs to know about. It’s important to communicate these updates in a way that is uninterrupted.
- Urgent updates: In emergency scenarios or for time-sensitive information, you need confidence that your email line of communication is robust.
- Engagement: Your workforce can’t engage with the message if it doesn’t reach them.
- Employee morale: Regular updates and acknowledgment of employee achievements keep morale high.
Best Practices To Improve Internal Email Deliverability
It’s not a matter of ‘if’, but rather ‘when’—when should you implement these practices? Here are the essential strategies for bolstering your internal email deliverability.
Ensure email security with domain authentication protocols
Deploy DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM), Sender Policy Framework (SPF), and Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC) to authenticate your emails. You can do this by contacting your IT team or email service provider. Some of the most common email service providers are already set up to help you with this. And with new email marketing regulations coming into effect for email deliverability in 2024, this is more important than ever.
Avoid the pitfalls of an external email tool
Relying on third-party external email tools can introduce unnecessary risks, such as data breaches and non-compliance with industry standards. Moreover, these tools may not integrate seamlessly with your existing corporate infrastructure, potentially causing disruption and inefficiency. Your best bet is to find an internal communications tool, like ContactMonkey, that can integrate with your HRIS to make data transfer between the two systems seamless.
Protect email deliverability with a dedicated internal email tool
Utilize an email service that’s designed for internal communications. For instance, with ContactMonkey, you can be confident that your emails are structured to maximize deliverability.
ContactMonkey allows you to send emails directly from your company’s existing email infrastructure, so you can avoid the negatives of sending from an external tool. By sending from an email infrastructure you are familiar with, you’re in the driver’s seat when it comes to managing your sender reputation.
Create stellar email content to drive employee engagement
Create compelling content that employees want to open and read. Use interactive features like emoji reactions and pulse surveys to boost engagement. Use ContactMonkey’s pulse surveys to gather feedback from your employees and encourage them to take action by responding directly within the email.
Let’s say that you want to survey employees about a new company initiative. As per employee survey best practices, you can keep things nice and simple by asking them to rate their opinion of it on a scale from 1-5, and they can reply by clicking on the corresponding emoji.
Turn emails into engaging conversations
Gauge employee satisfaction with embedded pulse surveys in your emails.
Keep emails out of SPAM by respecting legal regulations and best practices
Regardless of where you are in the world, you should always abide by legal rules and follow email best practices. This includes CAN-SPAM laws and GDPR compliance. It’s easy to be caught up in the spontaneous task of sending internal emails, but taking a few minutes to review and ensure compliance can save you headaches later on.
Send relevant information to offer clear value to your audience
Your emails must offer value to your employees. If the content isn’t engaging or relevant, it can contribute to a decline in your sender reputation. Some easy ways to add value include providing useful information, celebrating employee successes, and promoting important company updates.
An eye-catching subject line goes a long way in letting your employees know why they should open your email. Check out our tips for writing great subject lines to upgrade your own.
Keep your email lists healthy by regularly cleaning up your email lists
Regular list maintenance is key to keeping your list healthy and deliverability high. You can use ContactMonkey to manage and edit your Gmail and Outlook email lists—this task should be an ongoing effort to ensure your list stays up-to-date and engaged. Adhering to legal requirements and ensuring security in email communications is not merely an operational preference—it’s a mandate with serious legal ramifications. These regulations mandate that organizations exercise due diligence in protecting the privacy of individuals and the integrity of their data, underscoring the importance of using secure and compliant internal email tools.
Get the right message to the right people when you segment your audience
Send relevant, targeted emails to segmented lists to improve engagement. A new hire, for example, may find different messages worthy of consideration than someone in upper management. Picture the scenario: You’ve just rolled out a new company-wide policy, and you send an email outlining the changes to all employees. However, those in upper management may not be directly affected by this policy, leading them to feel frustrated and unengaged.
With ContactMonkey, you can segment your audience based on different criteria like department, location, or job title to ensure your emails are tailored for maximum impact.
Monitor and act on analytics to send content that resonates with your audience
Use the reporting features in your internal communication tool to identify trends and act quickly on any deliverability issues that may arise. Some of the most common internal email analytics to monitor include open rates, click-through rates, and bounce rates.
By regularly tracking these metrics, you can make adjustments to your strategy if necessary and ensure your messages are reaching your employees effectively.
Personalize your emails for better engagement
Double-check your data and personalize your emails. Incorrect data can have you flagged as a spammer, and personalization can help build a relationship with your audience.
With ContactMonkey, you can automatically validate email addresses before sending, ensuring your emails reach the intended recipients and avoiding any deliverability issues. You can also easily personalize emails with merge tags to add a personal touch and make your employees feel valued.
Taking Your Internal Email Delivery to New Heights with ContactMonkey Features
As a front-runner in internal email communications, ContactMonkey offers a suite of features specifically designed to elevate your email deliverability within your organization.
Understand what resonates with your team with in-depth analytics
To enhance your internal company newsletters or increase engagement with your email blasts, it’s crucial to gain insights into areas that require improvement. Our robust analytics tools not only provide data on your email campaign’s performance but also help you to identify and resolve any delivery issues.
Utilizing internal email tracking software enables you to understand how employees interact with your communications and update your strategy based on data-driven insights. Achieving effective internal communication is vital for achieving business objectives, improving productivity, and fostering employee engagement. Consider using dedicated tools like ContactMonkey for seamless internal communication management.
Choose between individual, anonymous, or overall tracking based on your required level of detail and privacy. Once you’ve sent your email, you can conveniently review your results on the ContactMonkey internal email analytics analytics dashboard.
You have the ability to monitor a wide range of data points, such as internal email open rates, clicks, read times, as well as the location and time of each open.
Discover your most engaged employees, analyze clicked and ignored links, and track employee survey responses. Gain insights through a visual click map, revealing the most interactive sections of your emails. You have access to the data necessary to enhance your communication in a proven manner, rather than relying solely on intuition. This allows you to make informed decisions and improve your effectiveness.
Enhance your communication with list segmentation
Internal communicators often distribute company-wide communications, although there may be instances where the information is relevant only to a specific segment of the organization.
For example, you might need to communicate a policy change that only applies to employees in a specific department. Sending this information to all employees may result in confusion and disengagement from those who are not affected.
Internal email platforms simplify the process of segmenting sending. With ContactMonkey’s List Management feature, you can create new distribution lists based on various parameters. These parameters can include department, country, job title, employment status, benefits eligibility, seniority, and more. This enables you to effectively organize and target your communication efforts within your organization.
ContactMonkey seamlessly integrates with your Human Resource Information System (HRIS) such as Workday or ADP, as well as Azure Active Directory. This enables automatic synchronization of your lists, ensuring that they are always up to date with employee changes. Say goodbye to the hassle of manually updating multiple distribution lists.
Ensure email deliverability with secure emails
While external marketing tools may offer some benefits found in internal email platforms, using these tools for internal communications presents its challenges. One notable complication is that external tools store and transmit the emails sent through their own servers.
The nature of the emails can present a substantial security vulnerability. Furthermore, there is a possibility that external emails may be marked as spam, potentially escaping the attention of employees.
ContactMonkey seamlessly integrates with your email and sends messages through your company servers and distribution lists. This ensures that internal emails remain unflagged, unaffected by spam filters, and maintain subscriptions from recipients.
Maximize email deliverability and overcome sending limits with Email at Scale
Efficient internal communication is vital at all levels of an organization, ensuring effective collaboration and achieving business objectives. By using dedicated tools like ContactMonkey, businesses can streamline their internal communications and experience the benefits of improved productivity and employee engagement.
For companies that send emails to more than 10,000 employees per day, the sending limits in Gmail and Outlook can significantly hinder your ability to communicate effectively. Moreover, the process of sending emails will become slow and cumbersome.
ContactMonkey’s Email at Scale enables users to surpass daily sending limits while enhancing email delivery speeds. By combining Email at Scale with internal email tracking software, users can access detailed analytics for each individual email, even when dealing with large distribution lists.
Master Email Deliverability with ContactMonkey
Email deliverability doesn’t have to be an enigma. With informed practices and modern tools like ContactMonkey at your disposal, sending those vital communications can be both powerful and reliable. Remember, communication isn’t just about what you say, but how effectively you ensure it’s heard.
For a deep dive into ContactMonkey’s features and how they can seamlessly integrate into your internal communication strategy, don’t hesitate to reach out. We’re here to streamline your engagement efforts and keep your internal communication pipeline running at its peak.
