Email marketing has the highest ROI ($44:1) in the digital marketing industry but how much you can make from it depends on your email list hygiene. Your results are very much dependent on your email list’s health, and professional email developers spend a good amount of time refining their lists. This includes a broad spectrum of best practices that range from setting automation workflows to continuous evaluation of campaign results. Today, I will share a few insider tips on maintaining a healthy email list that you can apply instantly. Read the article ahead to know more on the topic.
Double Opt-In Will Halve The Efforts Needed
Whenever email list health is concerned, I always recommend businesses to go for double opt-in forms. Single opt-in forms naturally have a higher subscription ratio, but they have a few backlashes that might concern you on the longer horizon. To start with, you cannot use single opt-in forms as proper evidence in case a subscriber lodges a legal discourse against you. Compelling them to take additional action through a double opt-in form for confirming their interest in your email list will give you far more refined results. I also find double opt-in forms as a must-have to lower the subsequent costs incurred due to disengaged contacts.
Allow Your Subscribers To Choose The Mailing Frequency Inside Welcome Emails
Almost everybody on the internet explains the significance of sending welcome emails. However, I would suggest you go one step ahead by allowing your subscribers to choose the mail frequency right there. It is observed that a huge proportion of unsubscribers are prompted by overwhelming email frequency. Allowing your subscribers to take control over the mailing frequency makes them feel valued and improve your odds of staying in their good book. You can also ask them to whitelist you while setting the mailing frequency. Playing your cards well in the first message itself will ensure that your mailing list requires lesser work in the future. Making these points standard across your welcome email templates will give continued results.
Leverage Re-Engagement And Retention Emails
Re-engagement and retention emails are an integral part of keeping your email list hygienic. You should regularly send out messages to your contacts based on the personalization data to keep them engaged. Newsletters are also great at keeping people engaged. As a matter of fact, a study from Statista finds that almost half (49%) of the subscribers themselves expect a brand to send them promotional emails on a weekly basis. You can offer discount ladders and even cap the discounts against a minimum purchase value for disengaged subscribers. This becomes necessary for businesses, as many people purposefully become inactive until they receive such discounts. You can leverage these emails based on customer demographics and with the help of customer activity data.
Make Use Of Segmentation And A/B Split Testing
Segmentation is among the topmost processes that drive a healthy email marketing strategy. Segmenting your subscribers according to their responses for various emails allows you to understand what works the best at an individual level. Sending them relevant messages improves their experience, and it also enables you to make calculated decisions regarding sales strategies. A/B Split testing is another feature that supports mailing list health improvement programs. It provides you with all the necessary email metrics for different versions of the same message. Combining these methods paves the way for better engagement and helps you stay relevant to your contacts as well as focus on engaged subscribers.
Make A Strategy For Lowering Bounce Rate
Email bounce is an event when the message sent by you isn’t received. It is classified either as hard bounce or soft bounces. Hard bounces occur when the email address is invalid, while soft bounces result from temporary glitches. The ESPs try to redeliver soft bounces, but you can use the following tactics to tackle both of them:
- Remove role-based emails like abuse@xyz.com or info@abc.com
- Remove email addresses with duplication
- Remove typos in addresses
- Delete addresses with consistent bounces
- Delete spammy addresses like 2992sk@osiacxm.va
Remove The Dormant Contacts
Yeah, you read it right. I know it takes a lot of effort to convince people to subscribe to your email list, but not everybody will engage with your messages. The problem with these disengaged subscribers is that they aren’t going to open your emails and even go on to mark you as “spam” instead of unsubscribing. This dents your IP reputation, and thus, your deliverability rates will get lowered. It is advisable to run a win-back and retention email campaign series to minimize the losses. While you can never achieve a 100% engagement rate, containing it proactively is a must. Thus, you should remove the dormant contacts from time to time in order to maintain your email list health and deliverability.
Summing Up
A healthy email list is the first step towards refining your ROI and getting more by doing less. Even if you have a smaller but hygienic list, you can get more conversions than a large mailing list that doesn’t have quality subscribers. I hope you find these tips on maintaining a healthy email list insightful.