Email Marketing: Maintaining Your List
Email Marketing can be a useful communication tool that leads to growth, engagement, and conversion when done correctly. It’s more than simply emailing a group of people you have access to through some relationship. It takes time, money, and strategy to use email marketing to its full advantage. We are going to touch on a few touchpoints below.
1 – Email List Building
Building an email list takes time, and there are usually no shortcuts. I’ve seen people try to use other people’s email lists for their own needs only to fail miserably.
Why, you ask?
That list of people is NOT your audience. They didn’t sign-up to receive emails from you but instead were simply gathered by someone. When you email them, they will most likely unsubscribe and many times mark your email as spam. When you build an email list, you will want to build it around people who want to hear from you. You want warm leads on your email list, so they are expecting to hear from you.
You can buy or rent a list from resources around specific criteria, but many times you cannot keep that list. You have to email that list of people through the vendor’s website. It’s much more beneficial to cultivate your email list to use as you want on services like MailChimp, Constant Contact, and more.
2 – Segmentation of your list
So you have built your email list to 2000 emails, and you are using it frequently. Great! Now, let’s talk about delivering the right message to the right audience.
Let’s say of that 2000 emails, 1000 of them take part in your Membership program. You may find that segmenting those members into their own list helps you communicate with them more effectively. If you are encouraging all 2000 to join your Membership, you are now delivering the wrong message to half your list.
Those new members will appreciate and respond to the new messaging just for them.
3 – Frequency of emails
Even though people sign-up for your emails, it doesn’t mean they remember that when you send them one. It’s a good idea to email them what to expect when they sign-up. Let them know that they have signed up for a weekly or daily email, so they are on the lookout.
It is good not to abuse the email relationship and only email them when you said you would. If you have to send an extra email, let them know why, and don’t do it often.
“Building an email list takes time, and there are usually no shortcuts. I’ve seen people try to use other people’s email lists for their own needs only to fail miserably.”
“Building an email list takes time, and there are usually no shortcuts. I’ve seen people try to use other people’s email lists for their own needs only to fail miserably.”
4 – Scrub your list
Building your list is important, and scrubbing your list is as well. Cleaning your list of one star, or inactive emails will keep a list in great shape. This will also help you increase your open rates and click-thru rates on your email campaigns. Being able to depend upon a well-scrubbed list will help you plan for a better percentage of conversion.
5 – Email Campaign Strategy
Now that you are taking proper steps to build, and scrub your email list, it’s essential to use it well. Take time to consider the right message to send to the right audience at the right time. By doing this, your audience will be more receptive to your emails because they will make sense to them. An email for a Christmas sale in April will not be well-received (overly simplistic example, but you get the point!). However, an email campaign about new custom socks three weeks before Father’s Day will resonate with your audience.
Email marketing can be an elaborate service that takes up much of your time or exceeds your skill level. If you require these types of services, please contact Studio490 today and let us help.
