Why Email Marketing Hygiene Should Remain As Your Top Priority

Sending Email through the use of CRM Software may sound very simple, mainly because as time progresses, CRM softwares has become more accessible and easier to use. This is why a lot of businessman wants to utilise email marketing in their marketing strategy. However, not everyone has become successful in their email marketing campaign. Why? Because not everyone practices email list hygiene.

Email List Hygiene is the cleaning out or segregating the cold contacts from the warm ones to make sure that your email reputation is maintained, and your emails will be read by your subscribers and customers.

Why do we need to clean our email mailing list regularly?

• Some emails may no longer be active and may result in a hard bounce
• Some people may have incurred an error or typo in entering their email.
• If you have been using email marketing for a long time, some of the emails may be old and were already forgotten
• Some of the emails from your contact list may have reported you as spam or may have unsubscribed

Aside from the reasons mentioned above, it has been known to all email marketers and businessmen that email hygiene is one of the best practices when it comes to optimising your email deliverability. And this fact remains true up until this day, especially because email service providers have become smarter than ever. Even filtering out emails that contain spammy words.

Here are the 3 Email List Hygiene Best Practices:

1. Never Buy Email Contact Lists

While it’s good to give yourself a quick boost especially if you’re about to run a new campaign, it is never a good idea to buy an email list, and there are 2 reasons why it should never be considered.

• Violating the General Data Protection Regulation  (GDPR)
• Harm Your Email Reputation
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Violation

You may have lived under the rock for a long time if you don’t recognize this regulation. Basically, this means that it is illegal to sell or buy any personal information from people within the European Union without having got the consent of the person. The law also says that the person is able to ask for you to delete of their personal information if they wish to do so. Failure to comply will result in a penalty that can run as high as €20 million. Now, if you buy a contact list, chances are, you’re going to have an individual from the European Union. And that’s a penalty waiting to happen. Instead of raising your revenue, you’re going to have to pay the fines. You don’t want that.

• Harm Your Email Reputation

People can recognise the brands and websites that they signed up with, and if they see your name in their inboxes for the first time, chances are, they’re going to think you’re spam. Come and think about it, what would you do if you signed up for a Justin Quek’s French Cuisine Culinary Class, and then Janice Wong came in teaching you about desserts? Wouldn’t that be disappointing on your part, mainly because you’re expecting to learn about French Cuisine? The same concept applies to buy a mailing list. Sending emails to the people from the list you bought will think of you as a nuisance. And if people are annoyed with you, they might report you as spam—which will definitely affect your Email Reputation. Lower email reputation sends your emails directly to the Spam Folder.

2. Segment the People on Your Mailing List

Your mailing list consists of diverse people who are interested in your business. All of these people have attitude and personalities— and your job is to make them satisfied with your services and products. Now, you won’t be able to give people the content that they want if you give them a one-size-fits-all content. I’m saying the contents of your email will only sound automated. People today are very acquainted with robots and AIs. They are already sick of the automated tone, and scripted answers. People now want real emotions and interactions with other people.

Email Segmentation is one way to give your subscriber the personalised content that they always wanted to have. By grouping people together according to their age, psychographics, location or according to the frequency of their interactions with your website gives you an idea of how you can customise the emails you’re sending.

Segmentation can be very tiring. However, some Marketing Automation softwares such as Infusionsoft by Keap from Singapore gives you an option to tag the contacts from your mailing list. Through this tagging system, you are able to give your subscribers contents that can cater to their wants and needs.

3. Take Out The Inactive  People from Your List

Inactive people can badly affect your email reputation for the reason that the inactive from your list will not open your emails. If these people do not open the emails that you’re sending,  your open rate will go down. This low open rate will definitely reflect in your email reputation. And you must know by now that low email reputation may send your emails straight to the spam folder— a folder that’s one click away from the trash. No one wants that spot.

However, if you think it’s too much of a gamble to remove the inactive contacts— after all, these people were formerly your active subscribers. If this is the case, then segment the people that are no longer active, and have them go through a re-engagement email campaign.

If they become active once more, then congrats! That’s one more customer for you. However, if they still won’t respond, it’s time for you to say goodbye to these people. It would be beneficial for both you, and your inactive subscriber to remove their contact from your list.

Final Thoughts

CRM Softwares in Singapore (and anywhere else in the world) is an investment. And you want these softwares to be an asset— not a liability, so make the most out of it. Never gamble your email reputation for a boatload of contacts especially if these contacts did not sign up for you. Your contact list will undoubtedly grow in time if you will practice email hygiene such as email segmentation, and removing inactive contacts.