Is your email list getting you down?
Are you not getting the email delivery results you want?
Is your delivery rate getting lower instead of higher?
… Well, if you act now, you’ll get not one, but TWO email list coaching sessions! (this could be a great infomercial… maybe?)
Some of those “As seen on TV” products are just too good to pass up, right? Yup. You gave in, intrigued by the marketing, you purchased yourself some email list coaching sessions.
So you decided to take advantage of your new purchase and now you’re at your first email list coaching session. Let’s get started!
List Coach: So, what are you truly looking for?
You: I want a better life, I mean list!
List Coach: Well then are you reflecting on your past experiences? Exuding happiness? Digging deep to be enlightened? Overcoming your obstacles?
You: I think I can answer “yes” to all of these.
List Coach: That’s great. Let’s go through these together to see if we can make some improvements…
Reflecting
Review your mailing results 24-48 hours after each send. Take a look at your report and unsubscribe all hard and repeat bouncers (Informz offers an auto-unsubscribe option as well.) Also look at any blocks or soft bounces to see if you need to tweak your sending volume, content, or work on your sender reputation.
Read through unsubscribe reasons and look at complaints received in your mailing results. These are clear indicators as to how your messages are being perceived by your target audience. Just because you are CAN-SPAM or CASL compliant, doesn’t mean you have a good reputation or deliverability results.
Happiness Wins
It is important that your subscribers are happy. Allow your subscribers to customize which types of messages they want to receive. It could mean the difference between an unsubscribe or a simple preference change (opt-out.) Be sure to keep your unsubscribe and preference forms separate though.
Make sure you have a clear “unsubscribe” link (even if transactional in nature.) Remember that it is best to have someone unsubscribe than to file a complaint by marking as spam. Not only are many of the complaints unsubscribed automatically in Informz, but they can also harm your overall sender reputation, so you want to be sure to avoid them.
Dig Deep
Get to know your list. Search through your database to see if you have any non-existent email addresses such as “example.com” or “test.com” domains. Also look for addresses with “info@” or “help@” which may reveal some list quality issues. Additionally, you could look for “.mil” or “.gov” addresses in your database where you may need to consider a different sending approach.
Consider the changing seasons and who your target audience is (Example: email addresses with .edu.) I’ve seen some cases where emails were being sent to student/faculty accounts over the summer which eventually caused soft bouncing due to their mailbox being full. If they soft bounce after a consecutive amount of times, they could turn into a repeat bouncer and will need to be reactivated. Before the summer hits, you may want to encourage certain members to subscribe with their personal address so that they receive your messages uninterrupted through the summer months.
Overcoming Obstacles
Many email lists contain spam trap addresses which can harm your reputation. This is why it is so important to target your list only to engaged, opted-in subscribers. It is difficult to decipher which addresses are spam traps since many of these addresses are actually still valid but are just old or abandoned mailboxes. Suppressing inactive subscribers should become a part of your routine. It is recommended that if a subscriber does not open or click on a mailing for more than 3 months, it is best to suppress them. As a side note, before this inactivity criterion is met, you could do a re-engagement campaign to “win-back” subscribers. I’ve seen some great results from this type of campaign as well.
Be very careful with new contact lists (remember, all subscribers need to have directly opted in.) If you decide to send to a new list through Informz, be sure you break the list up into smaller chunks. Sending out in smaller batches allows you to control the sending volume, monitor results, and make quick changes if something goes awry.
I hope this email list coach session has left you feeling happy, refreshed, and ready to enjoy a better email list!
Want to learn the basics of getting your email’s delivered? Check out the guide, The Informz Deliverability Whitepaper.
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