Avoid Gmail's Black Hole

In a post at Copyblogger, Sonia Simone reports on a recent study from Return Path that found 23 percent of permission-based email never reaches the inbox of Gmail users.

"No, I'm not saying it goes to a junk box," she says. "Most of it doesn't get delivered at all. No bounce message. No spam folder. Just—gone. This is not spam I'm talking about, either. It's email you asked to get, which Gmail decided not to give to you."

According to Simone, she defies this trend by achieving regular open rates that range from 75 percent to 80 percent, and she credits reasons like these:

Placing her subscribers' interests ahead of her own. The vast majority of Simone's content is designed to benefit her readers. "Do I promote?" she says. "Absolutely. And when I do, it's effective. But promotion is about 5% of what I do. The other 95% of the time, I'm giving value and solid information."

Becoming so indispensable that expectant subscribers alert her to deliverability issues. Simone's readers have even been known to subscribe with alternate email addresses if they suspect they're missing one of her messages. "They trust me to send them good stuff," she notes. "And if they don't receive it, they'll do whatever they have to do to fix the problem." Now, that's loyalty.

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