Have you ever noticed that the emails you send out to your email list end up sitting in the spam folder? As a result, your clients, customers and prospects may have missed an important update, a fantastic deal, or a free offer that you sent out (and you may have experienced the same thing from businesses you love!). In this article you will learn how to ask your clients to whitelist your email address so your emails won’t end up in their spam folders again.

These days, Internet Service Providers or ISPs as they are commonly referred to  (ISP is the industry term for the company that provides you with access to the internet.  Comcast is a good example of an ISP)  and email applications (example: Gmail or Outlook) use filters to send certain emails to spam, junk, or the promotion folders. Sometimes, they add warning messages to those emails or may even delete them entirely. 

Unfortunately, computerized filters aren’t perfect at screening messages. Often, they may send emails you WANT in your spam box instead of your inbox.

What Does it Mean to “Whitelist”?

The term “whitelist” is opposite the term “blacklist”, and means that you are telling your email system to allow the emails you want to come through to you.  Otherwise they can get lost.

Because of this, I recommend that you ask your clients to “whitelist” the email addresses that you send emails from (AND of course, you’ll want to whitelist the email addresses of the people you want to receive email from). Whitelisting simply means adding an email address to the Safe Senders List. By asking your clients to do this, they will be telling their email application that emails coming from your email addresses should always be delivered to their inbox. Not into their spam folder.

If you don’t yet have an email marketing system, go here to read about some  email marketing systems and how they differ from each other

Below you will learn how to whitelist with popular ISPs and email applications.  I want to ask you to add my email addresses to your Safe Senders List so you can learn how to do it and so you don’t miss any important updates from me.  Once you see how easy it is, you can ask your clients to add YOUR email addresses to their Safe Senders List. 

Follow these easy steps to whitelist the following email addresses (I send email from 3 different email addresses):

christina-emails

* If the email tool you are using allows you to whitelist the entire email domain, add “websitecreationworkshop.com” to the list.

Below are the steps to Whitelist emails, pick the provider you are using to read your emails and follow along…

How to Whitelist Emails with Web-based Email Clients

Watch this short video and then follow the steps below to whitelist email addresses in Gmail.

Gmail

Step 1: Add the email address to your Contacts.

  1. In the Gmail screen (or any Google screen), click on the Google Apps icon at top-right (9 dots in a square) and choose Contacts (you may need to click ‘more’ or scroll to see it).
  2. Use the “Create contact” button on the left to create a contact with the email address you want to whitelist and save.

Step 2: Set up a filter never to send emails from the email address to the Spam folder.

  1. In the Gmail screen, click on the Settings gear on the top-right.
  2. Select “Settings.”
  3. Click on the “Filters and Blocked Addresses” tab.
  4. Click on the “Create a new filter” link.
  5. In the pop-up screen, locate the “From” field, and enter the email address you’d like to whitelist. If you want to whitelist all email addresses from a specific domain, type “@” followed by the domain name (ex. @websitecreationworkshop.com). Then click on the “Create filter” button.
  6. On the next screen, check “Never send it to spam” and click on the “Create filter” button.

Yahoo

  1. Click on the Settings gear on the top-right.
  2. In the pop-up screen, click on “More settings.”
  3. Select the “Filters” tab.
  4. Click on “Add new filters” under “Your filters.”
  5. Name the filter and enter the email address you’d like to whitelist in the “From” field (you get to choose a filter criterion here as well).
  6. For “Choose a folder to move to,” select “Inbox” and Save.

Outlook.com (includes Hotmail, MSN, and Windows Live)

  1. Click on the gear on the top-right, then choose “View all Outlook settings.”
  2. Click on “Mail” – “Junk email.”
  3. Under “Safe senders and domains,” add the email address you’d like to whitelist. To add a domain, simply enter the domain name (ex. websitecreationworkshop.com)
  4. Hit “Enter” to save the settings.

AOL Mail

  1. Add the email address you want to whitelist to your address book. To do so, click “Contacts” on the left of your inbox screen.
  2. Click on the “New contact” Icon.
  3. Add the contact information on the next screen.

How to Whitelist Emails with Desktop Email Clients

Outlook

  1. Go to the “Home” tab.
  2. Click on the “Junk” in the “Delete” group, and select “Junk Email Options.”
  3. Under the “Safe Senders” tab, click on “Add” and enter the email addresses you’d like to whitelist.
  4. Click “OK.”

 Mac OS X Mail

  1. From the top menu, go to “Mail” – “Preferences.”
  2. Under the “Rules” tab, click on “Add Rule.”
  3. Name the rule.
  4. For the 1st dropdown, select “any” (ie. “If any of the following conditions are met”).
  5. In the 2nd dropdown, select “From.”
  6. Last, in the 3rd dropdown, select “Ends with.”
  7. For the “Ends with” field, enter the email address you want to whitelist. If you want to whitelist an entire domain, just enter the domain name (ex. @websitecreationworkshop.com)
  8. For the “Perform the following actions,” select “Move Message,” “to the mailbox,” and “Inbox.”
  9. Click OK.

Whitelist Your Email Address on Your Mobile Devices

iOS Devices – iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch

  1. Find any emails you want to whitelist.
  2. Tap the sender and add to either a new contact or an existing contact.

Android Devices – Samsung, Google Nexus, others

  1. In the default email client, touch the sender picture thumbnail in any email from us.
  2. Click OK to add to contacts.

 

In conclusion, asking your clients to whitelist your emails addresses with their internet service providers will ensure that they don’t miss out on your newsletters and emails.  Your interesting articles or exciting opportunities won’t get shoved into a spam folder, never to be seen again. They’ll land in your clients Inbox. 

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