Best Practices for Email List Management

A good email marketing strategy relies on having a clean and well-managed email list. Effective email list management involves several important steps. These include dealing with bounced emails, using double opt-in signup forms, and creating re-engagement campaigns. The aim is to grow your list with subscribers who are genuinely interested in your emails, turning visitors into buyers and potential customers into loyal clients.

Keeping Your List Engaged

It’s crucial to keep your email list engaged. If people don’t open your emails, they won’t read them either. Moreover, if your emails end up in spam folders or are sent to invalid addresses, it can harm your sender reputation and reduce the chances of your emails being delivered successfully.

The Inevitability of Churn

Email churn refers to the rate at which people leave your email list. This can happen because they unsubscribe, mark your emails as spam, have undeliverable addresses, or simply stop opening your emails. While some churn is unavoidable, practicing good email list hygiene can help slow down this process and keep your list healthy.

6 Email List Management Best Practices

Good email list hygiene is essential for a successful email marketing campaign. Here are six practices to help keep your list up-to-date with engaged subscribers, thereby increasing your return on investment (ROI) and meeting your key performance indicators (KPIs).

1. Warmly Welcome New Subscribers
   • Engage new subscribers immediately with a welcome email or a series of welcome emails. These emails should thank the subscriber for joining, ask them to add your email address to their contacts to avoid spam folders, and direct them to your best content.
   • Personalize the welcome emails as much as possible and let subscribers know what to expect in terms of email frequency and content. Make sure to provide clear instructions on how they can contact you, adjust their preferences, or unsubscribe.
2. Listen to Subscribers’ Messaging Preferences
   • According to research by MarketingSherpa, the main reason people unsubscribe from email lists is receiving too many emails. Allowing subscribers to choose how often they receive your emails can keep them happy and engaged.
   • Provide options for subscribers to opt-out of specific types of emails while staying connected to the content they are interested in. This shows that you value their preferences and helps maintain a positive relationship.
3. Practice Good List Hygiene
   • Regularly clean your email list to remove invalid addresses and reduce bounce rates. This can be done a few times a year or whenever you notice an increase in bounces.
   • Removing outdated or incorrect email addresses is important because high bounce rates can damage your sender reputation and lower your email deliverability.
4. Re-Engage or Eliminate Old Contacts
   • Some subscribers may have valid email addresses but are not engaging with your emails. You can either remove these addresses or try to re-engage them with targeted campaigns.
   • Re-engagement campaigns can remind inactive subscribers of the benefits of your emails and ask them to re-subscribe. If they don’t respond, it’s best to remove them from your list to focus on more engaged subscribers.
5. Make Unsubscribing Easy
   • If someone wants to unsubscribe, make it simple for them to do so. If they can’t easily find the unsubscribe link, they might mark your email as spam instead.
   • Having a prominent unsubscribe button not only keeps you compliant with laws like CAN-SPAM but also keeps your list clean by removing uninterested contacts.
6. Do Not Buy Email Lists
   • Buying email lists is illegal and can result in severe penalties, including fines of up to $16,000 per email. These lists are often of poor quality and not targeted to your brand, resulting in low engagement and potential spam complaints.
   • Building your list organically with permission-based tactics ensures that your subscribers are genuinely interested in your content and more likely to engage.

Keep Your List Strong & Healthy

Maintaining a strong email list improves your deliverability, boosts your ROI, and helps your business succeed online. Focus on growing your list with quality, engaged subscribers through ethical and permission-based methods. Regularly clean and manage your list to keep it effective and relevant.

For more tips on optimizing your email campaigns, explore resources on improving your email call-to-actions (CTAs).