How to Build and Maintain an Effective Email List

Email marketing is a great way to stay in touch with your clients and keep them informed of news and special offers. It is cost effective and offers one of the highest ROI. But for an email campaign to be effective, there has to be an up to date email list. There are options of renting an opt-in list but you can also build and maintain your own email list.  Here are a few simple steps in keeping your email list fresh and up to date.

1. Be Constantly Building Your Database

Use any resources you can to consistently build your email database. A good way to do this is by utilizing your website. Ask for an email address to subscribe to receive offers or a newsletter. You can require someone to sign up before downloading an item from your website. If you have a store front you can ask your customers for their email addresses or you can make sure that any printed material advertises a way for someone to sign up to be on your email list. Be creative and always be thinking of new ways to capture more emails.

2. Respect the Unsubscribed

Clean out your list of unsubscribed as you receive them. If someone doesn’t want to receive your mailers anymore, let them bow out gracefully. If you don’t honor their request, you could be in the middle of angry customer service calls that no one in your company wants to handle.

3. Manually Check Your List

With all of the software out there to assist you in your e-mail marketing efforts, sometimes the best method is your own eye. Manually check your lists for any errors that could be missed even by the most innovative of software. Simple data entry mistakes could mean the difference between a lead and a dead end. For instance, look for improper domain names (@hotmale.com or @yaho.com).

4. Entrust Data Validation Software

Turn to Kessler Creative to put together your e-mail marketing campaigns and validate your e-mail list. Our software finds the names that are invalid to ensure your e-mail reaches the clients that want to be contacted. The best part about our software is that it gives you a chance to work with your account executive to correct e-mail names before they are discarded.

Ideally, you should update your e-mail list every six months. People change e-mail addresses every day so it is important to keep up with your clients. When you speak to a long-time client, be sure to request updated information every so often to ensure you have the most updated information. Also, go through your unsubscribed list to keep up with those who no longer wish to receive your e-mails. Like an antique car, an e-mail list requires some maintenance but is worth the investment.

For more information, give us a call today at 800-394-9393