Empowering Your Secret Money Maker
With all the power behind the technological advances in our immediate culture, it is understandable how some may feel overwhelmed by the lighting speed of change enveloping us from every direction and how some businesses may be hesitant to embark on yet another technological journey with its own language and bearings. I mean think about it… from the recent additions of notable players like Google and Amazon, to the newer social media players that command attention, such as Pinterest, it goes without saying that there are so many add-ons to keep up with, it is no wonder why a small business owner may not feel comfortable getting into something new, given daily operational demands and time constraints.
For a small business owner, the classic legal paradigm of risk to utility may weigh against the embarkation of exploring new marketing strategies unsure of the results to come. However, let’s be clear and let’s shout it off the rooftops… There is NO QUESTION that great email list with an engaged subscribership is in fact a profitable business asset. Optimize the quality of your email database, and you will see less bounces and unsubscribes, higher open rates and click throughs and conversions to $$$.
There are two secrets to a great list. First, a great email list is fresh with updated subscriber information. Second, a great email list is one that boasts active subscribership.
1) A Fresh Email List
Maintaining a fresh email list is super important when it comes to email marketing, because stale email lists simply don’t optimize potential campaign efficiency, not to mention resulting high bounce rates and complaints can definitely get you into some deep water with ESP’s. Naturally over time, email contact information changes and becomes outdated, as people move jobs, change addresses and so forth, so some occasional glance over and mild spring cleaning is to be paid mind to in order to avoid serious list decay.
Certain things are simple enough for you to conduct a once over and correct, such as simple email spelling errors or omissions. But, you may opt to delegate the cleaning of your list to specific companies specializing in list cleaning and list hygiene for optimum deliverability and results. Companies such as LeadSpend, Fresh Address, and Brite Verify run technology-based diagnostics to check not only for syntax errors, non-existent email addresses, but also for inclusion of toxic email addresses, such as spam traps, damaging to you, your ESP’s reputation and your working relationship with your ESP, in essence.
2) Active Subscribership
An active subscribership is the best way to stimulate dialogue between your company and your direct audience, to guarantee that you are maximizing your potential for profiting from any given email campaign or email offer. Evaluating the involvement of your subscribers, their level of response to email campaigns and overall conversions to $$$ is crucial, because if your campaign efficiency has gone awry, consider these simple measures to awaken your troops and re-engage your subscribers.
Part of your efforts to clean house is to decide who should stay and who should go and it would be a disservice to yourself to purge contacts who may still be active and interested in hearing from you, simply because you have not communicated with them in a while. So, a re-engagement campaign is the best way to go, to touch base and give everyone a chance once more to decide if they still wish to receive email communications and offers from you.
Tips on Devising a Re-Engagement Campaign
1) Segment your email list into groups A and B, with A being the older subscribers and B the newer to join. You may add as many groups as you need to account for your number of contacts and dates of having joined your list. In working more specifically with a localized group, you will better be able to assess who wants to keep receiving offers from you and who should be taken off your email list.
2) Send individual test campaigns to each group targeting their specific interests, niches, past communication offers and monitor the results for activity. Individual test campaigns should remind subscribers about who you are and get them to re-engage. If a group hasn’t opened your emails in a while, test different types of content to see what may work.
- Try revitalizing a popular past email offer, or offering a discount incentive for returning customers showing that you really want them back.
- Give re-engaged subscribers a chance to win something of real value that you know would be hard to pass up.
- Ask people for their opinion to invite people to engage in dialogue and reconnect with you.