Three Ways to Maintain your Email List
Nothing is worse than your messages being marked as Spam or receiving a ton of unsubscribes. You want your database to be as engaged as possible, but in order to do that, you must make sure your list is active and up-to-date. Here are three ways to successfully scrub your list and clean it all up!
1. Remove duplicates and bounces.
Your list is one of your greatest assets. Duplicate contacts and invalid emails clutter your list. When you are importing your emails, merge duplicate contacts. After sending any broadcast to your list, actively track bounces and remove all invalid email addresses. Because of all the Spam flying around these days, people tend to change their email addresses more frequently than before, meaning it isn’t hard to rack up a few invalids each time you message your database.
Tip: Always use double opt-in to make sure any emails added to your list are confirmed and valid.
2. Actively engage your working list.
You’ve got a list, so use it. The best way to make sure you have an engaged and active database is to communicate with them consistently. Whether you email them once a week or once a month, keep your contacts engaged with your brand. Actively engaging with your list helps you scrub out bounces, weed through unsubscribes and more.
Note: Wait anywhere from 6 months to a year to delete any unsubscribed contacts from you list. It is illegal to delete them right away. Keep them as inactive list members. If you can, try and get more information about why they unsubscribed on your unsubscribe form. This way you can hopefully keep more users from going away in the future.
3. Win back inactive contacts.
We understand that it is not easy to keep a spic and span list all of the time, which is why there are ways to hopefully win back some of your old contacts. Many people come to us with rather old lists. My suggestion: send your old list a one off “Let’s keep the communication going!” email and track the campaign for unsubscribes, bounces, complaints and more.
If you have an old list that you are not sure about, this is a safe way to do some initial cleaning. Give people a chance to either opt-out or continue to receive your emails.
A clean list is a powerful list. List maintenance is critical, so do not let months go by without emailing or tracking your list activity. Email remains one of the top marketing strategies and you are only as successful as your list is maintained.
Digital & Social Articles on Business 2 Community(34)
