In case you haven’t heard, UnsubCentral has released our newest feature, Preference Center. While we’re super excited about it, we thought you might have some questions, namely WHY are we so excited? It comes down to email list management.
That doesn’t sound exciting or novel but let’s think of a list as one of those tiny primary colored bricks that you don’t want to step on barefoot in the middle of night. The email list is the building block for developing a personal and wanted relationship between you and your customer. Lists help us to manage our customers and prospects while giving us greater control for HOW we interact with our givers of revenue.
We work so hard to create lists but don’t realize that they need to be nurtured to get the results we want. We’ve put together some tips to help you do just that.
1. Opt-in’s – the gold standard
It’s preferable for your subscribers to opt-in to your list directly. While it may not be the law of the land in the United States, our Canadian neighbors do require opt-ins for emailing (thanks, CASL). A customer opting to subscribe to your email really wants to receive content that you have to give. Just remember, with inbox access comes great responsibility.
2. Scrub-a-dub your email list
Clean up and clean out bounces, unsubscribes, and gasp maybe even inactive subscribers? When engagement metrics are the key to keeping your deliverability high, removing dormant parts of your email list can improve your inbox placement rates in the long run. Still, if you want to try and revive those long gone inactive emails, Kissmetrics will help you.
3. Give’em what they want… options!
One of Kissmetrics’ suggestions is giving customers options. You can do this by offering a quiz or preference center to allow the customer to choose what they want. They won’t know they have choices if you don’t tell them, and it’s worth the effort from you to keep them engaged. If that preference center idea sounds like something you could use, UnsubCentral can help with that.
4. Please. Don’t. Purchase.
On behalf of all the marketers everywhere, please don’t buy lists. Unlike your grocery trips, going organic can actually save you money! Buying email lists is always no bueno. You miss out on the chance to create a real authentic relationship with your subscriber and could potentially damage relationships with current customers. Please don’t succumb to the fast list temptation. Do follow the helpful hints for healthy, organically-grown lists by HubSpot.
5. Seg ment
You don’t have to send the same email to your entire list. Think about the best way to segment lists for your audience. The more unique the list, the more personal your communication and the better your relationship with your customer. Here are a few ways to get started with segmenting from KissMetrics.
-gender, geographic location, how did you meet
We’ve also been digging this chapter from Zapier for a more in-depth guide to getting started with segmenting.
Lists are the colorful plastic building blocks of any solid email campaign. But now that you ‘ve got your list building, it’s time for some list management. It’s not enough to just grow a big list, you have to manage it. Good list management will help you create an efficient and successful email marketing program. If you’d like some more information on list management best practices reach out to us [email protected] and our account executives would be excited to help you out!
