With stricter privacy laws coming into play, email marketing has become substantially more difficult than ever before. Gone are the days when you could arbitrarily send emails to anyone and everyone; now, email service providers are asking questions regarding the legitimacy surrounding your contacts. So, how does a brand keep their email database legitimate and prevent it from going dormant? Let’s take a look at four important tips surrounding the hygiene of your email list –

#1 – Set Up Honey Pots To Collect Data

The most impactful way to collect email IDs legitimately is to setup landing pages on your Website which contain subscription forms for audiences to fill and submit to voluntarily receive information, promos and other notifications from your brand.

In addition, you can consider expanding your email database through other tactics such as organizing an on-ground event where audiences can fill out hard copies of subscription forms that allow you to contact them with further information. Similarly, if you conduct an online research study or social media contest, you can add a section toward the end where people can check a box to opt in to receive more information from your brand.

The reason consent is of paramount importance is because buying email lists is actually illegal for the most part, with stricter laws in place protecting consumer rights, such as GDPR rules, which, if you don’t comply with, could result in a hefty fine.

#2 – Scrub Your Data Clean

On average, email lists witness a 22% decline each year and approximately 30% of subscribers change their email IDs on an annual basis. Research even indicates nearly 1/3 of your subscribers are never going to open your emails, forget even getting to the call-to-action portion. When it comes to email lists, remember – it is all about quality over quantity!

Hence, it is important to consistently remove email IDs of people who have hit the “unsubscribe” button previously, email IDs that have bounced and those who go to the spam folder. Also remember to comb through your email database to correct typos and address misspellings. Furthermore, duplicate IDs should be removed immediately as well as very generic email IDs that are irrelevant, such as postmaster@company.com and sales@company.com. If your database contains a lot of email IDs that are very old, you should send out an email to check the validity of those IDs so non-existent or blocked ones can be removed.

#3 – Hyper-Segment Your Lists

In the past, we have emphasized the need to run automated drip campaigns. One of the best ways to keep your audience engaged and avoid having to remove them from your database because they are dormant or because they have hit the “unsubscribe” button is to segment your lists at a micro level so your customers and stakeholders receive emails that are genuinely relevant to their wants and needs. Just take a look at these stats –

* A personalized subject line is 26% more likely to be opened

* 56% of customers are more likely to return to an e-commerce site that makes relevant product recommendations

* Studies indicate that personalized emails often yield a 6x higher transaction rate

#4 – Re-Engagement Email Campaigns

Every couple of months, make it a point to schedule a re-engagement campaign to allow people to opt or re-opt in to communication from your brand to ensure email IDs on file are current, authentic and ready to be used. Often times, such email campaigns are more compelling when audiences are presented with a meaningful offer, such as a freebie or appealing promo code – they are more likely to take action. If there are certain email IDs that are still dormant, or someone opts out, then definitely remove them from the list.

Just because email marketing is becoming a more intricate process doesn’t mean you need to feel overwhelmed. Given email campaigns are 6x more likely to witness a click-through rate than Twitter and an average ROI of $44.25 for every $1 spent, taking time to build the right kind of email list will bring stronger results.

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