Segment and Target Your List
As email marketers, there are a few things we could all be doing better, and targeting is at the top of the list. It is fairly easy to get so caught up in the day-to-day aspects of running your business that you overlook the fact that your audience is comprised of unique people with different wants, needs, and preferences. Unfortunately, failing to realize this could leave you with undesirable marketing results.
Instead of targeting all your subscribers as a single group,
break down your master list into smaller lists or segments and target them individually with relevant message content. This could entail creating content designed to get your new subscribers involved right off the bat, customizing exclusive offers for your loyal customers, or even crafting messages that address the potential concerns of subscribers who have lost interest in your campaigns.
An ability to identify and target these segments is vital to increasing interaction and, more importantly, understanding your audience. The better you become at segmentation, the better you will be at understanding how they think, what they want, and how you can better service their needs.
Cleanse Your Email Lists
The importance of list hygiene is something that even some of the most successful email marketers take for granted. You can spend so much time focused on actually developing your campaigns and the people who are interacting with your message that it becomes easy to ignore inactive subscribers and consequently ruin the quality of your lists. The truth is that each and every one of your lists deserves a good cleansing to improve targeting, lower marketing expenses, and provide better results.
Following are some actions you can take to make sure your lists are always in good shape:
Invest in a Data Checker - A data checker can help you clear up some of those data capture problems and improve the quality of your lists. These programs are very useful as they can be easily integrated into your website and instantly catch errors at the point of entry. If errors are identified, you can notify your visitors and give them the opportunity to make the necessary corrections before their information is filed into your database.
Remove Dormant Email Addresses -
Inactive email addresses should also be removed from your lists, but not without first analyzing the data in your reports. If your reports show that mail sent to a specific subscriber has been bouncing, not opened, or the subscriber has shown no sign of interest over the last six months, it is probably a good idea to cut your losses and remove that individual from your list. If you believe that inactivity is due to a lack of interest, you could move them to another segment and try to appeal to them through a re-engagement campaign.
List hygiene is not something you can just do once and go on your merry way. It is a task that should be performed regularly to ensure that your campaigns are as focused as possible. Keeping a close eye on your reports will give you a better idea of how often this task needs to be performed. Having a list is only the beginning of an email marketer's job and list hygiene is an ongoing role within that job.
