Developing an email list strategy

69% of marketers understand the need to increase email list quality

This guide will discuss how the development of an email list strategy and how it will deliver improved ROI to the email marketer.  The success of any email marketing campaign depends on the email list quality it is sent to. email markers have much to think about and so many toys to play with: –

• Behaviour triggers
• Responsive templates
• Personalisation
• Segmentation

None of these things will deliver a good return on investment if your emails are not getting delivered, for this you need to have an email list strategy.

Email list growing starts with a strategy

When it comes to sales email lists you need to have a good understanding of what you are trying to achieve, understand your KPI’s and targets and understand how you are going to measure your success. Once you are here then you can think about the tactics you will employ.

Email list growth is not about volume

Email marketing isn’t about subscriber numbers.  40% of email marketers find that their list is full of subscribers who are never going to buy, gave an incorrect email address or have no interest in what you are selling.  The double opt in ensures that the email address is correct and that the subscriber is interested enough to bother to double opt in.  Other strategies include pre onsite qualification where the opt in form asks some simple qualifying questions about the subscribers thoughts and needs which in turn helps the marketer to understand the potential worth of that subscriber.

List hygiene is never be a problem when you follow email best practices.  Most email systems will suppress hard bounces and manage subscriptions for you.  Follow the top 5 rules for maintaining email list quality: –

1. be very careful if purchase lists from third party suppliers

Many lists are obtained in devious ways or simply scraped from websites. It is better to take the time and effort to grow your own list as this will create a far superior quality email list.  however ensure that you know how your list was harvested before you buy or rent it.

2. Remove role accounts

Only mail to actual people. That means automatically remove abuse@; support@; info@, etc. email addresses. More than likely these emails have not opted into your list so it’s best to get them off your list fast.

3. Remove bounces and invalids

Most systems automatically remove hard bounces after two tries, and that is a good thing. You don’t want to continuously mail to invalid email addresses as this can have a negative impact on your metrics, especially your delivery rates.

4. Remove inactives

We may sound like a broken record, but we urge you to remove non-responders from your liston a regular basis. If people aren’t engaging with your messages, you should stop sending them email, especially since ISPs are looking at engagement metrics to determine delivery.

5. Confirm subscriptions

Double opt-in is a great way to ensure that the subscriber truly wants your email. It also automatically helps purge bad email addresses from you list immediately

We can analyze your list and clean it for you, so get in touch if you have a dirty list problem.

Have you segmented your list?

36% of marketers see this as an issue but this is understandable as segmentation can be a very daunting process.  Segmentation is about understanding, and understanding comes from knowledge. Plan A Marketing use many techniques to help segment customers based on their purchase behaviour.  Prospects are slightly more tricky but the easiest approach is by asking questions and building a profile over time.

Finally, don’t lose your subscribers

It’s a simple equation, the more subscribers you lose, the more new subscribers you have to win. Winning subscribers takes a great deal of time, effort and budget.  If you think that you have an issue then get help in understanding why they are leaving you because once they have opted out you can’t communicate to them again.

Your email list strategy checklist

1. be very careful if purchase lists from third party suppliers
2. Remove role accounts
3. Remove bounces and invalids
4. Remove inactives
5. Confirm subscriptions
6. Segment your list

 

Source: – Adestra email Marketing survey 2016