5 Tips for Email list building
Are you building an email list of your customers? If you’ve been building up this database, that’s fantastic. Email marketing is integral for communicating your business’ news, updates, promotions, or any other relevant announcements. If you aren’t maintaining such type lists, you should consider starting one immediately.
We’ve established the importance of creating an email list, but it’s equally important to maintain these lists, to make sure the emails accounts are still active, receptive to communications, and most importantly, willing to receive your emails. There are very strict email legislations that have come to into effect over the last few years; CASL (Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation) and CAN-SPAM (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing) for Canada and USA respectively. Essentially, these two laws stipulate that you need the recipient’s expressed, or implied consent to email them. And this is where list maintenance is paramount.
Let’s explore some best practices for list building and maintenance.
- Clear Out Inactive Subscribers
Removing inactive subscribers is an important part of maintaining a healthy email list. Every email service provider will have reports where you can see the basics of who is clicking and who isn’t. You need to schedule a time to go through this list and remove the people who haven’t taken any action. If after six months a subscriber on your list hasn’t opened a single email, you’ve got to either let them go or try working on a reengagement campaign. It doesn’t matter how big your list is, if no one is actually opening or clicking your emails. Keep your list as active and healthy as possible. - Remove Fake or Spam Accounts
Odds are you probably have more than a handful of subscribers on your list that are phantom or spam accounts. How can you distinguish them? Look for email addresses that look like “sales@randomcompany.com” or “postmaster@mycompany.com.” These are commonly referred to as email distribution addresses, and 99.9% of the time you’ll never hear back from them. Another indicator is misspellings. It’s not uncommon to see things like “gmial,” “yhaoo” and “htmail” addresses. Drop those emails like a bad habit. - Reengagement Campaigns
Before you officially remove anyone from your email list, consider running a reengagement campaign. This is a last ditch effort to see if the people who have been inactive on your list aren’t just that “into” you. Common reengagement campaigns include a message that would say something like…“We haven’t heard much from you lately…because of that here’s a 20% off coupon.” Try creating a quick one off email that offers a discount or gives a heads up that you’re going to be moving forward with your email campaign…without them. - Make it Easy to Unsubscribe
As much as you might hate the idea of losing any of the precious names on your email list, from time to time, people will want to unsubscribe. When someone does want off your list, you need to make it easy for them, because you never want someone to think it’s easier to click “report as spam” over “unsubscribe.” When someone clicks “report as spam” even if your email isn’t spam, you’re going to get dinged on your reputation. You want to avoid that at all costs. So, make it really easy and obvious to your subscribers on how they can unsubscribe if they want to. - Always Look to Improve
Every email campaign always has room for improvement. Take the time to revisit your email marketing strategy a few times a year. Look at the data and see what it is telling you that you didn’t know, see if you can spot anything that jumps out. There are opportunities for you to be constantly improving your campaigns and strategies to keep your list growing at a robust rate and full of subscribers who are active and engaged.
Incorporate these strategies, and you’ll notice your list will have a lot more active readers, less spam, and fewer bounces, and that in turn, can result in more revenue for your business.