Building and Maintaining a Healthy List
Email is often cited as a retailer’s most profitable marketing channel. Great email performance requires a healthy contact list. In the first two parts of this series we talked about how to know if you’re reaching your audience and what to do about it if your emails aren’t being delivered. Today we'll discuss key ways to grow and maintain a healthy list.
How are your contacts opting-in?
Adding contacts without asking for email addresses will definitely create delivery problems. Invite your contacts to opt-in to email and explain what they are signing up for. Set clear expectations what types of communications to expect.
Do you introduce your brand properly?
What happens when someone opts-in to your list? Do you court those contact and put your best foot forward? Creating a well-planned welcome series can go a long way in getting your contacts interested in and accustomed to opening emails from you. Most welcome campaigns are structured with 3-5 messages introducing your brand.
Do you run a regular reactivation campaign?
When someone does not open your emails for 60-90 days or more, they need special attention. Letting names grow cold and stale without opening for too long may lead to your future messages not reaching the inbox. Running reactivation campaigns to these inactive names will help re-engage dormant contact records.
Are you emailing often enough?
That’s right, we’re talking about emailing often enough. It’s a common perception that emailing too much hurts your list. In reality, many of the most successful e-commerce brands are increasing their sends.
If your contacts asked to hear from you, and you’re delivering relevant, personalized content, then you likely aren’t emailing them too much. But you can email them too seldom. Why? Remember what we said about names becoming stale because they haven’t opened in a while and how that can negatively impact your delivery. That will hold true if you let names become cold by not emailing them. Don’t let your names sit there without hearing from you.