Maintaining a clean email list can be a challenge as people change email addresses or unsubscribe for various reasons. To ensure that your email list is effective, it’s important to constantly work on growing it with the right audience and regularly cleaning it up. This means removing inactive or invalid email addresses and ensuring that your subscribers are engaged and interested in your content.
By keeping your email list clean, you can improve your email deliverability and increase the chances of your messages being read and acted upon.
Here are 10 top tips for growing and maintaining a clean email list:
1. Regularly Verify the Accuracy of Your List
Use Voila, Norbert’s email verification tool to check the correctness and currency of the email addresses on your list. This helps maintain a high sender score, keeping your emails in the inbox and out of the spam folder.
2. Use Clean Language
Avoid words like ‘buy,’ ‘free,’ ‘apply now,’ ‘bargain,’ ‘lowest price,’ etc. These are known trigger words for spam filters. Additionally, refrain from including large images and attachments in your emails.
3. Simplify the Sign-Up Process
Place sign-up forms throughout your website, at the top and bottom of pages, articles, and in pop-ups. Include a call-to-action in your emails asking people to sign up. Consider creating paper forms or providing tablets for sign-ups at trade shows or events.
4. Generate Compelling Content
Produce high-quality content that your target audience finds relevant and valuable. This will attract attention from social media sites and search engine results. Once visitors are on your page, offer a premium incentive in exchange for their email address.
5. Implement the Double Opt-in Method
Ensure that subscribers are genuine and interested by having them confirm their sign-up through their inbox. The double opt-in process helps verify the quality of your email list, prioritizing engaged subscribers over sheer numbers.
6. Encourage Sharing
Include a call-to-action at the end of each email, urging readers to share your content. When you consistently provide valuable content, people will naturally want to share it with others.
7. Focus on Creating Remarkable Content
If you want subscribers to look forward to your emails, deliver high-quality content that captivates and provides value.
Clearly state in your email that non-responders will be removed from the list. Although it may seem counterintuitive to remove subscribers in order to grow, this process cleanses your list, ensuring it consists only of interested and engaged subscribers.
9. Take the Time to Scrub Your List for Errors
Thoroughly check for and correct errors such as dave@yaoo.com or leslie@gmailcom. Remove any email addresses associated with mass distribution or containing the word ‘spam.’
10. Seek Critical Feedback
Send out polls to gauge the sentiments of your audience and gather valuable insights. Include a feedback request at the end of each email or periodically. Give contacts the option to set communication preferences, such as topics of interest and preferred frequency. Additionally, use the unsubscribe option to ask questions and determine if different content or frequency would better suit their preferences.
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