Symptoms of an Unhealthy Email Marketing List (and How to Clean It)

Symptoms of an Unhealthy Email Marketing List (and How to Clean It)

Believe it or not, your email marketing list might not be as healthy as it can possibly be. In essence, an email list is actually pretty organic because, in an ideal sense, you want your emails to reach real people that can lead to conversion.

You know what we’re talking about. The last time you sent a bulk email campaign, how many were actually opened? How many actually replied to you? And, how many of those emails actually work?

In this short article, we’ll examine how you can run diagnostics on contact list health and see what you can do to improve things like CTR (click-through rates) and how you can get more people to check out your correspondence.

So sit back and relax, today we’ll teach you how to be a contact list doctor.

What is an unhealthy email marketing list?

Simply put, an unhealthy email marketing list is a list of contacts with emails that are invalid or non-responsive. You get nothing when you send them an email, and in fact, it is actually detrimental for you to send invalid contacts emails.

Why should I clean up my list?

Email providers track the number of emails that you send and the quality of emails sent. Meaning that the more your emails “bounce,” the more your provider will think that you’re abusing their systems and be downright “spammy.”

You have an “IP reputation” that you have to maintain, and an email list that isn’t clean will affect your ability to penetrate the inbox of your intended recipient and further knock your chances of converting even lower.

Deliverability is affected by some factors, and they include engagement rates, spam trap hits, content, and your reputation.

As you can see, there is an actual pressing matter at hand with cleaning up your list.

Related: Slaying Your (Mailer) Daemons and Reducing Email Bounces

Steps you can do maximize contact list health

The first thing you can do is to run all the emails that you have through a third-party vendor that can check which of the emails are still valid; this will save your IP reputation from taking a hit if you were to do this yourself and have a list of emails that are invalid.

You have to understand that email addresses can become dormant over time. This is where you can remove hard bounces from your email marketing list.

Once you have cleaned these emails up, it’s time for you to have a personal look at your contact list. Go through each and determine if it’s still in the right list (if you are using multiple targeted campaigns with different lists), which ones you have to contact again to revive, and which ones never respond to your emails.

If you have noticed that a particular email address gets your email and never interacts with or is classified as the classic non-responder, then you should think about removing them.

Another type of cleanup that you have to make sure that you have to do is removing role accounts. Role accounts are easily identifiable because their prefix usually starts with support@, admin@, info@, etc. These roles can change and you have to remember that these emails are used for a purpose.

You need to keep your email marketing list entirely targeted towards real people that have the potential to convert to your offerings.

Don’t forget the test run

There are also instances where some subscribers have stopped interacting with your emails; this is where you should try to send them a “wake-up call”. These can be a series of emails that have been crafted especially for them to engage with you.

If they still do not want to do anything with your emails, drop them on the spot.

Related: Marketing and Transactional Emails: How to Leverage Both [VIDEO]

The double opt-in

Here’s every marketer’s favorite technique, it involves re-engaging with a client by asking them to confirm their email address with you again. This ensures that the person is actually a responder. It is important to get creative at this point and make sure you give them something in return. It doesn’t have to be something of monetary value.

Recheck you content

Times have been changing and content isn’t just your usual press release from the company. Maybe the reason for your poor click-through rate is the content that you are providing. Make sure that your content is always worth looking at. It has to be actionable and should be something engaging.

Remember, even crafting subject lines deserves an article of its own. Get creative with everything that you send your clients.

Related: The Art of Writing Email Copies: How to Make It Stand Out from your Prospects’ Inboxes

At the end of the day

The goal is to maximize deliverability and click-through rates. Make sure your list is clean, your content is great, and you have systems in place to maintain good email hygiene.

The good rule of thumb is a clean up every six months, but if you can do more often, then you really should.


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