Here’s how to Clean Up your Email Database

It can be disheartening to learn that you must now clean your email list after spending so much time and effort creating and growing a subscriber base. You'll remove people from your list who you thought would want to buy from you, become a part of your community, and share your business with others.

Is that, however, correct? What good are old leads if their engagement dwindles over time? Furthermore, by hoarding old leads, you are affecting your email sender's reputation, which affects all of your other email metrics. Is it worthwhile to keep a few "maybes"?

Building an email list for numbers isn't a good idea if you want to maintain a healthy email list. So, let's go over a few key things you should know if your email list has a few cobwebs in it. In this blog, we'll go over why cleaning your list is important, how to tell when it's time to clean, and how to get it done.

What is email list cleaning and why should you do it?

Email list cleaning entails keeping your email contact list up to date by removing inactive and outdated contacts and responding to recipient preferences regularly. Regular email hygiene will result in more effective interactions with contacts and will help you avoid having your emails marked as spam.

There are several serious consequences to having dirty data on your email list. The good news is that if you clean your email list regularly and practice good email list hygiene, your emails are much less likely to be marked as spam, and you will reap several other benefits:

Best Practices To Clean Up Your Email Listing

Scrubbing emails can help with this. Simple math is one of the advantages of email cleaning. Here are some of the best practices to keep it clean.

Begin by examining your campaign metrics and comparing them to industry benchmarks to determine whether you have higher-than-average hard bounce rates or low engagement.

Many companies provide detailed sales tracking and attribution, as well as a 360o view of engagement, ROI, and performance.

You should tidy up before doing a deep clean, just like you would in your home. Remove the most obvious items that are lying around that should not be there. So, what does this mean for your subscribers? Find unused segments and items that are no longer required.

Check for contacts on multiple active lists, look at the last-sent date on any lists, and delete any that are too old. This will help to ensure that everything is in line with your current email marketing strategy and isn't too out of date.

Remove role addresses such as marketing@company.com and sales@company.com as well. Find a personal point of contact for clients if at all possible.

Regular list cleaning will also boost marketing email engagement rates. This translates into deeper connections with email subscribers.

It's critical to clean up your email list regularly to build a more targeted list of engaged contacts. This allows you to concentrate on the subscribers or customers who are truly interested in your product. You will be able to produce content that meets their needs and interests.

Above all, you will have higher email open rates, conversion rates, and a more engaged community. This means increased revenue and overall customer satisfaction, especially in eCommerce.

Address those who occasionally open your emails. What does it mean if only some emails elicit responses? Something about your content isn't quite right for them. You can try to fix it by making subtle changes and running A/B tests, sending different variations of the same campaign to two groups within this segment, and seeing which performs best. You can also use a survey to test the time of day, and frequency of emails, or simply ask them for their preferences.

If you need something quick that will make a big difference, ask this list's subscribers to add you to their contacts. It will prevent emails from being marked as spam and provide more opportunities for engagement by going directly to the inbox they open every morning.

To maintain a clean email list, add a line at the top of all future emails reminding subscribers that they opted into these emails and why. This allows readers to assess why they are receiving this email and prevents them from reporting you as spam. It may also assist them in determining whether they wish to continue receiving this type of email.

This is fantastic because it allows people to unsubscribe themselves when they believe they no longer require this content. Unsubscribes in large numbers are beneficial to your list. It works like a Roomba, cleaning up while you go about your business.

There's no need to ask your most engaged subscribers to opt in again because their interaction shows that they value the emails.

Your disengaged subscribers, on the other hand, may want to leave but haven't taken the time to unsubscribe. This could be because they care so little that they would rather delete them individually than unsubscribe altogether, or because they believe the unsubscribe process is too difficult. Send a re-optin campaign to your unengaged subscribers and unsubscribe them if they do not re-subscribe.

How do you go about doing this? Be open and honest! Inactive subscribers should be notified that you've noticed their lack of engagement and that you don't want to clog their inbox if they're not interested. Inquire if they want to continue receiving emails, and include a clear call-to-action button that will re-sign them up for future emails.

What happens if they don't respond? After a week or two, delete them. Marketing automation can help you do this automatically.

Email marketing automation like ZeroBouce, ListWise, Hunter, ReachMail, NeverBounce, and many more are also available to help ease the process. Based on their actions, your CRM can automatically send subscribers to specific lists (or tag them). Remember when we talked about moving inactive subscribers to a different list? Instead of doing this manually, you can automate it and have it trigger a re-engagement campaign for you. Automation can also be used to remove subscribers from email workflows or campaigns that are no longer relevant to them.

Inactive subscribers are those who do not open, click, or otherwise interact with your emails in any way. Having engaged subscribers will always benefit your conversion rates, so removing inactive subscribers will increase your campaign's open and click-through rates.

Before permanently removing inactive subscribers, send them one last email campaign, possibly a feedback campaign, to see what will re-engage them. If all else fails, you'll have to permanently remove them as subscribers to maintain your email deliverability and conversion rates.

Final Thoughts

Email marketing is essential in any industry, and cleaning up your inbox regularly can benefit your company's data reports and conversion rates. As long as you perform daily clean-ups, establish your open and click-through rates, handle bounce and spam rates, and start engaging your lists with aimed emails of concern, you will always keep a squeaky-clean email list.