The holidays are here! It’s time to dust off your email marketing list and bring in customers for the holiday season. If you want true impact from your email campaigns, it’s important to stick to these 3 best practices. With the power behind best practices in mind, here are three list management rules everyone should follow:
1. Clear and Direct
Keep the opt in obvious! Wherever you collect your contacts, make sure you mention how you’ll use the email address. If you’re adding customers to your newsletter list for example, a separate unchecked box asking permission at the point of purchase is the way to go.
2. Recent and Engaged
Quality lists take time to build. It’s tempting to hang on to older subscribers even when it’s clear they’re no longer reading promotions, but older unresponsive contacts only hurt your email marketing impact. So it’s better to remove the older unresponsive contacts entirely.
Think of your email list as a fluid resource. When you clear out the old, you make room for the new. New sign-ups are often the most engaged portion of your list. A list should never be older than 18 months. It’s even better to stick to active and engaged contacts from the past six months. Pruning your list regularly leads to increased view rates and greater list growth in the long term.
3. No Pressure!
Pressuring potential signups into opting in only hurts your list quality. Yes, your list grows rapidly, but not with valuable contacts. Pressured signups will typically immediately unsubscribe, complain, or possibly don’t exist in the first place. Opt in incentive is great, but make that incentive your lovely content.
About the Author
Mad Mimi is the easiest way to create, send, share and track email newsletters online. Mad Mimi is for people who want email marketing to be simple. Every day, over 40 million emails are sent, shared and tracked using our delightful and powerful service. This article was originally published in Mad Mimi’s blog. Check out the original post here.