Email is by far the least expensive and most efficient way to communicate with your customers in the modern era. But no one wants to waste time sending emails to people who don’t want to hear from them.
This means marketers, businesses, and brands need to focus more time and effort on the actual evaluation process for your email list and to also clean it up periodically. The problem that often occurs with this process, is that every marketer wants to boast about the size of the list they helped a client create. But have you really helped your client if all you helped them with is full of people who don’t engage?
Another important thing to remember here is that most list hosting solutions are charging you for emails that are stale, old, or dead. Unless they are removed from your account, your list hosting costs will keep going up month after month. With this in mind, it’s just one of the many reasons why we all need to clean up our email list, better manage our data, and also focus on list optimization and improved performance.
If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, keep reading on as we walk you through five tips that will help you clean up and shape up your email list!
1) Put Quality Over Quantity
This is something that cannot be stressed enough! Everyone wants to brag about how large something is that is associated with their business. They want to brag about how many social media followers they have, how many likes a picture got, even how many emails their marketing department sends. What good is any of that if you get no benefit from having those people on your lists (or channels)?
There is no benefit to having people on your list who refuse to engage with your content or your business. In the end, marketing emails serve one primary purpose: to boost sales or engagement with the product or person you are communicating with them about. You have no chance to do that if the person won’t even open your emails. Have your marketing teams examine engagement data with whatever email marketing software they use. They can purge addresses that haven’t opened emails within a specified period of time. This will ensure that you are communicating with people who actually want to hear from you and who engage with you.
Also, along with this have your marketers clean up misspelled addresses, spam addresses, generic addresses (like Info@ or support@), customers who flagged you as spam, and emails that bounced. Your list may shrink drastically, but at least now it is filled with people who want to hear your message.
Before you make the purge official, check out this website for some more tips before you hit that delete button!
So, now that you’ve cleaned up your email list, what’s next? The next three tips will help you grow your list with people who want to be there!
2) Make It As Easy As Possible To Sign Up For Emails!
If a customer is on your website or your social media channels, it should be as easy as possible for them to sign up for your email list. People get so much email these days, be happy that they think your business is exciting enough that they want email from you! The ability to enter their email address and get on your list should be everywhere. There should not be a single page on your website that doesn’t have a signup box. Find a way to incorporate signups on your social media as well. If they engage with you on social media, they will engage with your emails.
And as a point of reference, please send a thank you email to your new subscribers! This is not something that a lot of companies do so you will stand out. Customers will feel appreciated!
3) Allow Users To Customize What Types of Emails They Receive
This seems like such common sense, but so few marketers make this a function in their email lists. If you sign up for an email list of a clothing company that sells both men’s’ and women’s’ clothes, but you have no interest in the men’s’ clothes (or anyone to shop for in that category) why should you have to receive those emails? It doesn’t make much sense. Some companies are just in the mindset that if they email bomb their customers, it will translate to more sales. What it actually translates to it a lot of unsubscribes and companies being flagged for spam. Don’t be that company! It may take more time, but give your subscribers the option to customize their content. They will thank you and reward you handsomely!
4) Think Outside Of The Box And Use A QR Code
QR codes have been around for a while, and while they are not all the rage that they used to be, they still have the potential to be extremely useful. If you are at an event, a QR code is a perfect tool to utilize. QR codes can be printed on cards and handed out to attendees. The person then scans the code which takes them to a signup sheet for your emails. QR codes work for banners or street signs as well. They give customers a chance to sign up for your emails wherever they are and at the moment that they think about it. It should go without saying, but make sure all the forms that connect to your QR code are mobile-friendly. No one uses a QR code from a computer; they are strictly for mobile devices.
For more information on Step 2-4, check out this article from Neil Patel. He is well respected in the field of social media marketing and a great source of information about any social media marketing question you could have.
So now you have an email list that is full of people who want to be there. What’s next?
5) Create Content That Keeps Your List Engaged
This should go without saying, but you would be amazed at how often this step gets overlooked.
Just because someone signed up for your emails doesn’t mean they won’t ever leave. And if you don’t provide quality content, they will. Make sure all your content is eye-catching and relevant to your brand. Make sure it speaks to your customers in a way that evokes feelings and emotions. If you don’t value your subscribers, you will be right back in the same situation that brought you to this article in the first place.
So there you have it, the five steps that can help you clean and improve your email list. Use these tools, and you will get much higher dividends from your email campaigns!
If you’d also like to learn more about growing your mailing list daily through 100% opt-in email lead generation, be sure to contact us today and we can show you a free demo on the process.