From time to time on our blog, we share business development and sales tips that help with nurturing or converting B2B marketing leads. In this post, the message is simple: you should check your email junk folder at least once a day. Why? Because there could be exciting opportunities or responses lurking in there.
Let’s take a look at 3 reasons why you should check your junk mail folder at least once a day.
Website Lead Gen Forms Can End Up There
This first is one of the most important reasons to check your junk mail folder once, if not twice, a day. Ideally, a B2B marketing strategy includes lead generation forms on a company website. The form submissions are typically set up to distribute to at least 2 people within a company. Many times, the set up is a smooth process and the leads end up highly visible in the desired recipient’s email inbox, giving the recipient warning and allowing them to follow up with the lead.
However, for reasons known and unknown, they may end up in the spam or junk folder. If a form submission contains any number of “trigger” terms that an email client like Microsoft Outlook or Gmail labels as “spammy,” the form submission will bypass the inbox and go directly to spam. When it’s spam, it’s great. When it’s a genuine lead looking for pricing or wanting a demo, it’s bad. Additionally, if an email address is set up to be both the sender and receiver of a form submission (as can happen with website administrators), email clients will label these emails as spam. These are the known reasons and may or may not be fixable.
The unknown reasons why a company’s website form submission goes to spam? They are…unknown. For both reasons known and unknown, your company’s website form submission may be ending up in your junk or spam folder. It’s essential that you check your junk or spam folder at least once a day to see if any genuine B2B marketing leads landed there.
Email Nurturing Campaign Responses Might Be Hiding
There are several other great reasons to check your junk or spam email folder each day. The second reason is that responses to email newsletters or email nurturing campaigns might be hiding in there. For example, if using MailChimp for marketing newsletters or nurturing campaigns, it’s a best practice for B2B companies to have those emails come from a real email address. That way, if a user on the email list replies or responds, a live person gets the email in real time. However, if the user’s email client strips out the images or videos in the response, it may be categorized as spam and sent to junk by the recipient’s email client.
For this very reason, it’s important to check your junk folder several times after sending an email newsletter or launching an email nurturing campaign. If an individual requests to be taken off the list by responding to an email, it’s essential that is handled. You don’t want to get a bad reputation or alienate a client or prospect by continuing to email them when they have expressly asked to be removed. Conversely, if the end user enjoyed the content of the newsletter or is responding to get more information about the nurturing campaign, you must be as responsive as possible and get back to them quickly. Otherwise, it will look like automation runs your company and you aren’t real people (which will, in turn, tank your company’s credibility and trustworthiness).
Great Vendor Opportunities Trigger Spam Warnings
Last, but not least, is the potential for vendor opportunities. As email security gets tighter and tighter, more and more first-time emails will go to junk or spam folders. A great partnership or tool might be available that will enable your firm to grow, but the initial outreach email may end up in your junk folder. Since your email client doesn’t recognize the email address as a trusted email address and the email likely contains a link or two, it’s automatically considered junk. Additionally, if the vendor is using any type of email automation software, it might appear spammy since it wasn’t sent from the same server that the email address sends from.
While we all understand that not every vendor is the right match or can offer the value that you need to grow your business, there are great vendor opportunities out there that can support your B2B marketing efforts and help you do your job better. You don’t want to miss them when they come along, particularly if they reach out right when you are in the process of locating a vendor that offers the product or services you need the most.
Just Do It: Check Your Junk Mail Folder
Honestly, we understand that your day is hyper-busy and you have a tough enough time managing your inbox, let alone all the other email folders. However, a quick peek every day at your junk mail folder might just be key to closing a new lead, keeping an existing client happy, or find the right vendor at the right time.
