What do you want first: the bad news or the good news? We’ll start with the bad.

Here’s the bad news:

If you’re noticing that your winery’s email campaigns are seeing a decrease in click rates or conversions, it’s possible that your emails aren’t even reaching your subscribers’ inboxes.

But here’s the good news:

There are three easy things you can do to improve your winery’s email inbox placement. Today we’ll break them down for you.

We are half-glass-full kind of people, and we’re going to get your email results overflowing!

Welcome to the Email Maven’s blog—the place for winery owners and marketing pros who want to sell more wine online by sending better marketing emails.

Listen up friends. We have got some truths about email stats:

• If an email you send to a subscriber bounces back, your email service provider should give you an idea of why it wasn’t delivered. It’s often due to factors outside of your control, such as a full mailbox or an email address that no longer exists.

• If your emails end up in the spam or junk folder of your subscriber, your campaign metrics can still show that email as delivered.

• If your emails land in the Promotions tab in Gmail, your campaign metrics can still show that email as delivered.

• Unfortunately, open rates are increasingly less meaningful due to factors like image blocking, preview panes, and mobile clients that skew open rates. Stagnant click rates and conversion rates can indicate that you aren’t delivering relevant content or motivating buyer behavior, but they can also signal poor inbox placement.

Let’s talk about three simple steps your winery can take right now to turn things around:

1. Tell new subscribers to look for your welcome email.

How?

Update the subscription confirmation message on your website to instruct customers to check their inbox for an email with the subject line “Thanks for Signing Up” or “Welcome to the List.”

Also, advise them to check their Promotions or Spam folder if they don’t find your email right away.

I’ve said it before: At the point of opting in, this is the most engaged a subscriber will be with your winery. They are literally refreshing their inbox to see a campaign from you. If they don’t find your email right away, they may assume you aren’t sending anything unless you tell them otherwise.

Make sure to update those online confirmation messages AND train your team to inform customers at the point of sale to look for a welcome email from your winery.

Make it part of the onboarding experience.

2. Get your customers to reply to your welcome email.

This is a gold star for inbox placement because it signals to inbox providers that emails from your sending domain are important to the subscriber.

3. Clean your list.

Periodically filter your subscribers to find those who haven’t clicked on campaigns from you within a specific period.

The ideal period of time varies depending on how frequently you email.

Look for people on your list who aren’t engaging and give them one last chance to confirm their interest before removing them from your active sending list.

Continuing to send to contacts who aren’t engaged can hurt your inbox placement with the customers who actually want to hear from you.

Make it a regular process to clean your email list and remove people who don’t click or convert.

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There you have it. It’s simple, quick, and will help get your email engagement metrics back on track.

If you loved today’s content, please share it with your winery business bestie who might also need a little inbox placement boost.

Until next week, keep pressing send on your next best email!