Home » Security Bloggers Network » Marketers: Have you talked to your IT team about your email deliverability and open rates? (Hint: You should.)

Marketers: Have you talked to your IT team about your email deliverability and open rates? (Hint: You should.)

by Valimail on February 4, 2020

We all know that the greater your brand presence, the greater your pipeline growth, your digital presence, and ultimately your brand trust with consumers. So what if you could display your company’s logo directly in your customers’ and prospects’ inboxes? Millions of impressions – before the email has even been opened.

Thanks to a new standard called BIMI (Brand Indicators for Message Authentication), this is actually possible. The standard – being developed by industry leaders 250ok, Fastmail, Google, LinkedIn, ReturnPath, Twilio SendGrid, Valimail, and Verizon Media – rewards brands that implement rigorous email security policies by allowing for customizable images to appear next to authenticated emails they send.

Initial pilot tests have shown a 10% increase in open rates when email messages show familiar brand logos next to them. What marketer doesn’t want that? Strengthen your email security posture and reap the marketing rewards.

The requirements for being able to implement BIMI are simple:

DMARC at enforcement (which, by the way, provides an additional 10% boost in deliverability!)
Proof of logo ownership
Create BIMI record

The steps are simple, although you need your IT team to help get through them.

What you need to know about DMARC

The journey ultimately revolves around your email-sending domain being at DMARC enforcement. At a glance, DMARC is an open email standard that ensures only authorized senders can use your domain, by aligning what SPF and DKIM authenticate with what’s shown in the From: field. Those basic email standards on their own do not account for what recipients actually see, and have no provision for ensuring that senders have a right to use whatever domain – or email address – appears in the From: field of their messages. So DMARC solves that issue, when you get to enforcement (a policy of rejecting or quarantining bad emails).

Marketing teams tend to be heavy users of email to send large quantities of outbound messages. But they typically do not own their organization’s actual email functions or have the ability to update DNS. You as Marketing use sending services to be able to conduct your email marketing programs, and leave the other logistics to your IT team. They will be the ones to embark on the journey to DMARC enforcement. So in order to reap the rewards that BIMI brings to marketers, you need to make sure your cohorts in IT are on board (and hopefully excited to put these measures in place!), because you need their help.

Luckily, the benefits list is long for them, too: While you’re excited about impressions, deliverability, and open rates increases, IT and security personnel will be excited about other benefits DMARC provides: anti-phishing, BEC protection, compliance and privacy, shadow IT control, and the list goes on. Implementing DMARC at enforcement truly turns CISOs and CMOs into BFFs.

How to get your IT team on board

But how do you start the conversation with your IT team? You’re asking them to do more work. You’re asking them to set up a process. You feel uncomfortable.

Think of it this way, though: If a member of your IT team came to you in Marketing and said, “Listen… there’s something I need your help with. It’ll be a joint effort but in the end, you’ll increase your pipeline by X amount and I’ll be enabled to get my project off the ground.” Wouldn’t you do it?

To get the conversation started here are a few questions to bring to your IT team:

What’s the status of our current email protocols (DMARC) within the organization?
If it’s not implemented, who approves/how do I find the main point of contact?
Do you (IT) foresee any roadblocks?
What can I (Marketing) provide you (IT) to overcome these obstacles?

If you want to go into the conversation armed with even more information, you have the power to take the first step and check the status of your domain. Visit domain-checker.valimail.com, enter your domain, and you’ll instantly see the results. They are easy to interpret and they give you details like the exact DMARC record published for that domain, as well as SPF details. And, you can forward the results page to your IT colleagues, either as a URL or as a downloadable PDF.

Still stuck or want help getting the conversation started? We’re happy to help. Contact us and learn about our approach to DMARC enforcement, and about our work on and involvement in everything BIMI.

The post Marketers: Have you talked to your IT team about your email deliverability and open rates? (Hint: You should.) appeared first on Valimail.