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Do you ever feel concerned about keeping your email marketing running effectively and avoiding the unfortunate spam folder? This largely depends on maintaining email list hygiene.
A striking 80% of marketers think that email marketing directly affects how they retain customers.
Yes, it’s true!
Email continues to be a highly efficient communication method for businesses, specifically in B2B contexts. But there’s a snag: If your email list is plagued with faulty or unresponsive addresses, you risk compromising the effectiveness of your campaigns.
So, to avoid such an undesirable situation, email list hygiene is crucial.
Now, we should take an in-depth look at why maintaining email list hygiene is so important and how you can uphold this practice.
This piece will guide you about healthy email hygiene habits that will maintain email list hygiene, prevent your small business from landing on spam lists, secure delivery, plus open your marketing emails.
What does Email List Hygiene entail?
Email list hygiene revolves around keeping your subscriber list shipshape. It encourages the deletion of inactive or cold email addresses and backs healthy practices of sending emails to keep the list engaged. Upholding good practices for email list hygiene routinely ensures that you are sending emails only to those who truly desire to receive them.
This improves both your chances of evading the dreaded spam folder and also helps maintain a friendly rapport with your audience.
- Every year, the average email list loses 25% of its value
- Close to 30% of email addresses become outdated or invalid every year
- Over 20% of email registrations consist of typos, syntax errors, domain errors, and other mistakes.
- Nearly one in five commercial emails fail to reach their intended inbox due to deliverability issues stemming from poor list hygiene.
Think about how damaging it could be to send well-written emails to invalid addresses. Not only does it waste your economic and human resources, but it dramatically harms your sender’s credibility, prompting your emails to be labelled as junk mail or blocked entirely.
Email marketing has grown in popularity, and as this trend continues, complaints about spam also increase. This is a major concern that can lead to scam cases where individuals lose thousands of dollars due to fraudulent email communication.
According to HubSpot, natural decay impacts email databases, causing them to degrade by nearly 22.5% annually.
Which email list hygiene matters a lot?
Consistent email list hygiene is fundamental for successful marketing drives.
The need for frequent cleansing varies amongst different lists. However, specific symptoms suggest when a list needs a clean-up
High bounce numbers:
A considerable increase in email bounces, particularly hard bounces, indicates that there are many outdated or inaccurate email addresses included on your list which need elimination.
Diminishing engagement rates:
If the rates of opening the mail and clicking through links start dropping, this might suggest that potentially interested recipients have not been receiving the emails properly. Sanitizing the list can boost interaction with recipients who show high interest.
Out-of-fashion lists:
If an inventory hasn’t been operated in over half a year, then it’s ideal for cleaning. With time, Email IDs can become dormant or abandoned, resulting in elevated bounce counts and negative feedback.
Buyable or Leasable lists:
Acquiring an email listing is always unadvisable because such inventories mostly comprise mediocre email IDs, implying no specificity toward your brand identity and its offerings. The process of cleaning can help eliminate irrelevant subscribers thereby lessening the risk factor associated with spam reports.
Lists with inferior delivery rates:
If you are facing difficulties regarding email delivery, this may be due to a copious number of spam traps or mediocre email addresses in your list.
High spam complaint lists:
Clean your list if many recipients mark your emails as spam. This ensures that it is only sent to those who consider your content significant.
Poor performing segmented lists
If parts of your list continuously perform poorly, clean them thoroughly to make sure the contacts still find your offerings relevant.
Post Rebranding:
Big changes in your business might render your old list irrelevant. Cleaning helps pinpoint subscribers interested in your new path.
myEmailVerifier provides bulk email validation within its system for users to check their subscriber list before dispatching emails.
Maintaining Email List Hygiene in 3 Easy ways
Circumstances might have changed for some of your audience, making your content less viable for them. This could contribute to sluggish engagement rates if they have chosen not to unsubscribe but rather delete your emails instead.
Frequently, people change jobs, switch email providers or create new accounts. All these increase bounce rates for businesses.
This necessitates scheduling an email list hygiene routine a few times annually. While it might seem odd to remove names from the list, it’s preferable to have a compact and keen audience as opposed to a larger disengaged one.
Eliminate wrong or invalid bounced email addresses.
Jumbled and bounced emails impose heavy penalties on both the delivery and return on investment (ROI).
The causes behind returned emails include,
- Errors in the email address
- Email addresses that ceased existence
- Email rejection due to being marked as spam
- Filled up mailboxes
Rekindle with Your Email Audience
If you identify a potential targeted audience within your subscriber’s list who would find value in what you offer, explore methods of reengaging them.
Separate your customers into various groups based on their likes and demographics. Having multiple lists will help you create efficient marketing strategies.
Focus on engaging resources like surveys and clickable items instead of just having customers open them. For example
- Ask for feedback or thoughts about a new product or service.
- Initiate a competition and ask them to follow your social media channels.
- Tack on a survey with some sort of prize or freebies for those who participate
A great way to reconnect with your audience is through an “Are you still interested?” email.
Prior to removing inactive contacts, numerous companies have success by sending an email that simply receives permission to continue sending emails.
Remove inactive subscribers
A smaller, engaged audience is more beneficial than having a large number of inattentive contacts, no matter how counterintuitive it sounds. Unengaged subscribers don’t open, click on, or interact with your emails.
An unsubscribe option should always be included in your emails by law and standards set by reliable ESPs. This allows users the chance to leave if they choose.
You Should Read: How can you build an email list?
Better your ROI with effective email list hygiene. In any industry, maintaining clean email lists is crucial to successful marketing campaigns. Following good email list hygiene can increase the effectiveness of campaigns and ultimately lead to higher sales. Besides improving engagement with your customers, it also helps in better understanding customer behavior leading towards building trust for your brand.