Using free or paid email list cleaning services regularly will help businesses build meaningful relationships with subscribers and increase overall open rates.
You should clean up your email list periodically to keep it engaged. So you can focus on those subscribers or clients who truly want your product. Considering their interests and needs will help you create content that they will find useful.
You’ll also get higher conversion rates and a more engaged audience, which means more revenue.
Bad email addresses also bounce less. ISPs trust senders with lower bounce rates because they show respect for recipients’ inboxes and don’t spam them. As a result, all of your subscribers will benefit.
What happens if your email list isn’t cleaned?
Businesses ignore bad email addresses because they believe sending emails to one more person is free.
Using a dirty email list can lead to bounces, unsubscribes, and spam complaints. These hiccups can accumulate and negatively impact your ability to connect with your entire audience, including your most engaged readers.
So, how do I clean a list? Here are four methods you can use
4 Simple Email List Cleaning Techniques
With this knowledge, here are some of the most effective email list cleaning strategies you can use to improve your campaign:
1. Re-engage with Messages
Low engagement doesn’t always mean that recipients are uninterested in your business. They may not like the content you’re providing. Before you delete subscribers who don’t open your emails or visit your website, consider what other content you could provide that would be more appealing.
Non-engaging subscribers can be enticed to act with the right offer, such as: a discount, a bonus and unique content
Subscribers often value your content but are tired of receiving emails. This is especially common around the holidays when inboxes fill up faster than stockings!
Reciprocate with them on other platforms or later. You can use your social media profiles to reach subscribers who prefer not to use email. You can also allow subscribers to temporarily stop receiving emails and resume receiving them when they are more curious or less busy.
2. Make Unsubscribing Easy
You must allow people to unsubscribe from your email campaigns. The rules don’t always specify how to do this, so there’s a lot of variation in how businesses handle this.
Some companies make unsubscribing difficult to keep customers on their list. This usually doesn’t work.
The worst thing you can do is hide your unsubscribe link or make it difficult to unsubscribe. If recipients can’t withdraw, they’ll mark your emails as spam, which is a major blow to your sender’s reputation.
When receivers report your emails, ISPs (Internet Service Providers) lose confidence in their value, and may block or separate your emails from other receivers’ inboxes.
Many business owners struggle with the idea of making it easy for readers to leave. You probably spent money and time attracting them, so why would you tell them to unsubscribe? Having an easy-to-find unsubscribe list and an opt-out procedure won’t encourage clients to leave if you’re offering genuine value.
You have nothing to fear if you send out unique email content!
3. Use Marketing Automation
Marketing automation can help you trim your mailing list. Create rules to automatically remove or segment subscribers who meet certain criteria.
Using marketing automation, quickly remove invalid or out-of-date email addresses from your list. Create a rule to extract addresses that bounce more than once.
4. Opt-In Again
You don’t need to re-subscribe your most engaged subscribers because their engagement shows they value your emails.
Your least engaged subscribers may want to leave but haven’t tried to unsubscribe. Maybe they don’t care enough to delete them one by one rather than withdraw from it. After all, unsubscribing is a hassle. Send a re-opt in campaign to your non-engaging subscribers and delete them if they do not re-subscribe.
Be direct! Inform “sleeper” readers that you have noticed their lack of interest and do not wish to clutter their inbox. Inquire if they want to keep receiving emails with a transparent call-to-action button.
After a week or two, remove them. Using a marketing automation tool can do this instantly.