Databases are the backbone of all of your email marketing efforts. How so? Simple – without it, your email marketing campaigns would go nowhere. If your database is not well organized, you won’t get positive results, and you may even end up in the spam folder, no matter how strong your content is. Here is how you can avoid this problem by keeping your databases clean, which will help you improve your ROI.
But, first of all, let’s explain why you need to clean your email database. Your database can have nonexistent email addresses, email addresses with invalid data, or even people who don’t want to receive your emails. All of this can have several negative consequences on your email marketing campaign:
– Email providers have many filters to prevent users from getting spam. If your emails are marked as spam by more than 0.1% of recipients, the email provider will identify your emails as spam, which can ruin your entire email marketing strategy.
– If you have contacts who have not consented to receive your emails, you may be in breach of data protection laws, which can lead to severe penalties.
– Being flagged as spam can negatively affect your brand. If users think you are sending spam, you will lose their interest and trust, and with it, the opportunity to turn them into buyers.
– Dirty database dirties your metrics.
How Can You Clean Your Email Marketing Database?
The goal of cleaning up your email marketing base is to ensure that every contact on your list is a customer who is genuinely interested in receiving your emails. The following steps will help you do that:
- Identify hard bounces and remove those emails from your list.
- Give subscribers a way to unsubscribe.
- Digg up inactive users and offer them the option to unsubscribe.
- Detect low-quality contacts.
- Delete duplicate contacts.
After you do this, you can jump to the next step, maximizing email marketing campaigns with your now-clean data. Here are some tips:
Split test your opt-in forms – With this tool, you can try different variables on your website and in your marketing campaign to decide which combinations will attract the most email subscribers.
Split test broadcast messages – Broadcast messages can also be a useful tool for split testing. These are spontaneously sent messages, as opposed to scheduled follow-up emails. Because these messages announce timely information such as promotions or product launches, make them as useful as possible.
Survey your customers – One of the best things about having customers’ email addresses is the market research potential. Whatever you’re trying to do with your products or services, you can just set up a survey and use email to ask your customers for their feedback.
Segment your email lists – When sending emails, make sure to tailor them to specific customers. The key is in the segmentation of your email lists. Divide your contacts into groups of subscribers who have something in common. This way, you will make your messages more appealing and relevant to subscribers, which will result in more sales.
Take Away
Email marketing is precious for businesses who want to keep in touch with their customers and prospects. And what company doesn’t want that? There is a big difference between having a cluttered, dysfunctional database and one that helps you run a savvy campaign that drives traffic to your website and generates sales.