Contacts have been one of the bases of marketing strategies for a long time. Contact lists can be used for establishing better social networks, and we are presenting you with 5 steps you can use to refresh your contact list this spring.
Spring is the season when you prefer to clean up your house or tackle any other seasonal chores. But one thing is always neglected, and that is your contact list. Cleaning up your contact list is known as list hygiene, and it comes under the most underrated areas of email marketing. It is known to be valuable for email engagement because a healthy email list can give you a lot of profit.
List Hygiene:
The act of removing all the inactive contacts, unsubscribers, and bounces is known as list hygiene. List hygiene aims to ensure that the email you send out receives decent conversion rates and optimal engagement.
As per Brevo, maintaining email list hygiene significantly improves your email performance, and the more robust your statistics, the more favorable the outcomes. When your email list is in good shape, you can have greater assurance that your emails are reaching the intended recipients. Consequently, there’s a higher likelihood that these emails will be opened and clicked on. List hygiene includes a number of processes that include:
- Updating any errors and typos.
- Deleting users’ email addresses and updating them.
- Double-checking any duplicate entries and removing them.
- Filtering email subscribers by location, gender, and income, etc.
It is a false belief that the bigger your list is, the more valuable it is. The only thing that matters the most is engagement metrics. Therefore, it is preferred to have a database of 10,000 subscribers who want to receive your emails than those 100,000 who are not interested at all.
Steps to refresh your contact list:
The first step is to make sure that you are working with a list of subscribers who are genuinely interested in the content you provide them. Keeping your email list clean and updated will pay off. Follow these simple steps to get started:
- Remove un-engaged subscribers:
Let’s face it, not everyone in your email subscriber list will like your content. Those people are just unable to connect with you, and it is okay. However, you should know that these subscribers are still a part of your overall email statistics.
You need to remove any un-engaged subscribers that are hurting the engagement metrics. The more a subscriber is engaged, the better will be the deliverability rate. Focusing on these people is more important. For that, you need to know which readers are still actively reading your emails.
According to The Markettailor, having a substantial count of inactive or unengaged subscribers in your email list can negatively impact your engagement rates and diminish the effectiveness of your email campaigns. Without these inactive subscribers, you can direct your efforts toward engaging with the active and interested members of your list, ultimately boosting the overall engagement of your campaigns.
You can ensure that your subscribers are engaged by sending out an email asking those users who have opened your emails in the last six months to click on a link and confirm that they still want to be on your subscriber’s list. That way, the people who actually read the emails will remain on your list, and the ones you ignore the email will be automatically removed from the email list.
- Re-engage your contacts:
While removing the un-engaged subscribers is also an option, you can also try to win back the uninterested readers. For this purpose, you can use a re-engagement strategy. If chosen correctly, the re-engagement strategy never fails.
It is used to get all those subscribers back who have stopped engaging with you through your emails. Usually, when your subscribers lose interest, it is because they do not find the content relevant or interesting.
For this purpose, you can create a re-engagement email or make it a special event. The key is to interact with your readers and strengthen the connection. For example, you can invite your subscribers to a webinar or any live event and arrange an answer question session. Doing so will make the readers feel cared for, and they’ll be able to relay their opinions and expectations to you. Afterward, you can make the emails more relevant and improve the readers’ experience.
- Create a re-engagement/win-back email:
When you are dealing with email subscribers, what better way to win them back than using emails? Creating a win-back email that has all the tricks to get your subscribers back on track is very important. These emails are focused on the inactive readers to get their interest back before choosing to remove them from the list.
According to Engage Bay, Win-back emails boast an impressive 460% higher conversion rate when compared to promotional emails. Furthermore, it’s worth noting that 45% of individuals who open a win-back email are also inclined to open future emails. Additionally, existing customers exhibit a significantly higher likelihood of making purchases, approximately 6-7 times more than new customers.
Here are some tips that you can follow to ensure that the email is perfect:
- Make it personal – Doing so will help your readers relate to the email and take the message in on a much more personal level.
- Remind your subscribers why they opted in the first place. Here, you can state the reason why your subscribers joined you and renew your content.
- You can use a lead magnet to confirm their subscription. This proves to be a filter and automatically selects the people who want to receive emails and removes those who no longer wish to receive the emails.
- Things to consider before cleaning up:
Your vision should be clear when you are cleaning and updating your list. First of all, you need to think about the campaigns that you are retargeting. This can mean repeating a message to remind your previous readers why they joined you in the first place. Second, you need to remove the inactive contacts. And lastly, you need to re-engage with your old readers.
For this, you need to know about your buyer’s persona. Based on their choices, you may need to alter your emails to better suit their interests. You need to organize lists and messages that are specific to the interest of your subscribers. Take note of what content interests them. This will keep them engaged. Once you have a healthy list again, you can continue with your regular campaigns and interact with the new subscribers who have recently joined you.
- Use marketing automation workflow:
Using marketing automation lets you manage the entire email marketing process, even when you need to focus on multiple campaigns. This technology can also help you refresh your contact list.
By sending a few automated emails to your target readers, you can easily see who is involved and who is not. Marketing automation tools are also capable of sending automated messages to all your contacts, including the inactive ones. You can schedule a re-engagement message by using either an email or social media and even win back some of your readers.
By scheduling your re-engagement message, you can make the automation process work more fluently. It includes a link to keep the subscription going and will automatically remove all the contacts that did not click to get your lead magnet. That way, the only remaining people will be the ones who clicked and still wish to receive your emails.