A clean email marketing list will save you money, ensure that your metrics are more accurate, and help you avoid false spam reporting. Over time, people who aren’t really interested in your offerings end up on your email list due to downloading freebies or other activities. They may have even bought something you’ve sold in the past but the product is retired. Either way, cleaning your list regularly is important.
Some email autoresponders have excellent automation that will remove multiple bounces, unsubscribes and undeliverable email addresses for you. This is a great feature because having too many false emails will put your numbers off. But, you’re going to have to work just a little harder than this to ensure a hygienic list.
* Keep Double Opt-In Features – The double opt-in feature that most autoresponder programs have helps to avoid some of the problems with bad email addresses. Don’t deliver your freebie to them until they’ve completed the steps involved.
* Email Them Regularly – You don’t need to email your list daily, but two or three times a week will help keep them interested in you and your business. If you don’t email them for long periods of time, then you’re going to suffer from creating a dead list of people who don’t even bother checking to see if you’re saying anything.
* Use Special Software – If you have a super-large list you can use software such as Data Validation to help you maintain a clean list. This works well for professional internet marketers and will work well for you too.
Link – http://www.datavalidation.com/
* Send Special Emails to the Inactive – If you have people on your list who aren’t opening emails at all, and haven’t for longer than a month, send a special email just to them with a good subject line that indicates inaction will remove them from the list. If they don’t open it, unsubscribe them if they don’t unsubscribe themselves.
* Pick Something to Check – Each month, pick one thing to check on your list such as inactive members, people who click but don’t respond to the call to action, and so forth. By placing your focus on one type of member at a time, you can try different means to either bring them to active status or let them go.
* Open Rates – If your open rates are super-low, it’s probably not really your members that are the issue; it’s your subject lines. Try working on them before you cut anyone loose. Your messages are likely getting lost in the maze of other emails just like yours. Try to stand out.
* Are You Segmenting? – One thing to check with your list is whether or not you’re segmenting properly. You should remove people from one list and add them to another, based on their actions. If they’ve bought item A, they should no longer receive information about item A but instead get information about item B.
* Keep Growing Your List – Growing your list can help clean it up because as you learn more, you’ll get better at creating ethical bribes and low-cost introductory level products that excite your audience and keep them wanting more.
List hygiene is an important component in maintaining an email list, because it costs money to have each person on your list. Plus, it can be a pain if someone reports you for spam. You want to demonstrate the highest ethical standards, and you can do that well with a clean list.