Yes, I know, it’s also getting close to the official start of summer, Memorial Day, but with a winter so miserable as many of us had this year, spring has just started! We clean our houses, catch up with old friends, and clear out bills, all in the name of springtime. But what about professionally? Do any of us really do a deep spring cleaning of our desks, files and lastly, our marketing contacts?
These contacts can be your members, subscribers or both. Just like that pair of hot pink shoes that you swore you would find a place to wear somewhere, we keep sending to our non-engaged subscribers that we believe one day will open our emails. Well — news flash! It’s time to approach this differently and think about spring cleaning your list.
Some easy steps to cleaning your lists are:
1. First, identify those individuals who have not opened or clicked on an email from you for a certain period of time (3 months for example).
2. Send a different email to them, encouraging them to update their email preferences, possibly stating that if they don’t, they will no longer receive the newsletter (or whatever emails you state) anymore.
3. Send a series of these emails; I suggest 3-4, so subscribers have fair warning before they are removed the list. You may also want to test out the subject lines during this campaign. Reason being, this group is much different than the active you group you send to on a regular basis. You may need to change things up a bit for them.
4. Once you have identified those who want to stay on your list and those who did not respond, you can then take the final, sometimes scary step, and remove them from your list.
Remember, even though you will end up with a list of subscribers who were not engaged but still want to receive emails from you, don’t lump them back into the mass group. Find what works for them and segment them out to deliver the customized email experience they want.
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