List management and hygiene – Email Marketing
The days of simplicity are gone in the interactive marketing world, there are countless avenues for internet marketing, numerous strategies for each channel, myriads of metrics, start to finish measurement and a ton of marketers jostling around trying to figure it all out and make a name for themselves.
What ever happened to fundamentals? What happened to simple, quantified, targeted practices that produced results? Don’t get me wrong, I want to know my click through rate, my open rate, if someone actually used FTAF in the emails I send them, how my emails render across all clients, what keyword produced the most revenue in my pay-per-click campaigns, my organic search rankings, website visitor bounce rates, etc, etc, etc. So many metrics, so little time. I feel as if we as marketers get caught up in the amount of data we can capture and just fizzle on what counts. I’m glad we can measure our campaigns down to the last click and cent, I really am, but I don’t want every detail on why I’m not doing as well as I should without the practices in place to make the results better; it’s all about fundamentals. In baseball, being fast doesn’t matter if you can’t hit or catch.
Fundamentals in the email world all boil into one thing, the list. Without the list (a healthy list), nothing else really matters. Focusing time on running reports and analyzing data is futile and off base if the list being sent to isn’t properly cared for. Case-in-point, list attrition is an average of 20-30% per annum. With no outreach and campaigns set up to replace those contacts the reporting being done on those lists are depreciative. While the metrics may show a consistent OR (open rate) or CTR (click-thru-rate) the actual amount of recipients staying active is becoming smaller and smaller.
Also, not appropriately tracking and scrubbing inactive addresses dilutes the reporting. Here’s an example: A 20% open rate on a 100k list is 20k people; if the list is 10% inactive those stats are wrong. 20k opens on a 90k list is 22.2%. Not a huge lift, but most lists are probably more inactive than imagined (I promise they are). I recommend parsing these addresses out and reengaging them, leaving them on a list while inactive is not only a waste of money, but also ultimately a waste of both parties time. Testing cadence, SL’s, A/B content variations, imagery, time of send and from names are all tertiary experiments in comparison to list management.
Whether the list is small or large, list health will ultimately determine the outcome of campaigns. While this isn’t the only factor prevalent for success, but I’d argue it’s the most vital process in the art of email marketing in order to continue positive results long-term. Caring for a list will preserve a higher ROI much better than, micro managing how many images are inserted into the text or counting the characters in your subject line. Let’s focus on what matters.
Viva la Email.
Save the Pups!
Unless your just a cruel human being with a lack of God given soul - put this on your website as support for all the puppies out there that don't deserve to die. SPAM is illegal and detrimental to the survival of canines overall. And no we don't really care about cats, they are sneaky, devilish, flea-infested demons that deserve what they get.
Viva la Email.
Buying an Email List and Other Ways to be a Failure.
In the last couple of weeks there’s been a decent amount of chatter around list purchase for email marketing. That bugs me. Why? Well, it’s a terrible practice that most unknowing marketers do due to the ‘ease’ of purchase, low cost and minimal usage of resources on the part of the purchaser. I see why these things are appealing to someone who doesn’t know much about email, but even so, it’s logically a bad choice. It doesn’t take much to understand that you get what you pay for and in reality – no one sells their email address to a company for the purpose of being marketed to.
I can’t remember a time when a list vendor asked me, “Can we use your email address? We just want to sell it to whomever will buy it so that you can get relevant, timely, great priced deals directly to your inbox. Sound good?” That doesn’t happen; it doesn’t happen because no one would be willing to do it. As a marketer on any level list buying should raise some immediate questions, regardless of email knowledge. How often is this list used? What are the demographics within the list? How where the records obtained? Who legitimately allows you to sell their email address to whomever you choose? Why do you seem so slimy and why does that bottle say snake oil?
We as marketers also have to look at the pudding; I promise the proof is in there. Take for example the disclaimers clearly stated in the terms of most reputable ESP’s (Email Service Providers). Mark Brownlow has a fantastic post that also highlights this – “No purchased lists …”, MailChimp, “purchased lists may not be used”, Campaign Monitor and ExactTarget says, “Our clients certify that they will not use rented or purchased lists…” (His post is better than mine, you should probably read it if you got this far in)
At the end of the day there are oodles, yes oodles of reasons legally and professionally why we shouldn’t buy lists. I could list all of them out here, but there are better posts out there for that. This post is a common sense post for marketers looking to use email as a marketing channel. Don’t take the easy way out and buy a list, you’re doing your company a disservice and our industry a non-favor. Even Lady Gaga knows that buying an email list is like submitting your dues to the Spammer Club.
If you’d like advice on how to be a real email marketer, I suggest and shamelessly plug all my friends – HERE. (Really is a fantastic resource)
Stay thirsty my friends, Viva la Email.
New Author on the EmailGuide.com
I'm very pleased to announce my inception into the ranks of such great email marketing folks on the http://www.theemailguide.com. It's been a great ride this past year meeting new people, learning new things, and pioneering in the email space with such great people.
Here's my profile - http://www.theemailguide.com/author/rory-carlyle/
Viva la Email!