email marketing & database hygiene - more fun then you may think!
DESCRIPTION
Finding new possibilities & insight in your email marketing un-opens and unsubscribes - find out more in this sample chapter from Easy Digital Marketing.TRANSCRIPT
Email marketing: database hygienemore fun then you may think!
A sample chapter from: Easy Digital Marketingby Veronica Stenberg
www.easy-digital-marketing.com
SIGN-UP FOR UPDATES & SAMPLE CHAPTERS: www.easy-digital-marketing.com [email protected] © Veronica Stenberg 2012
Email marketing: database hygieneSAMPLE CHAPTERPAGE: 2
This may sound both a bit weird and a bit tediously boring, but really its necessarily not the case! In this section i explain how you can learn from un-opens an unsubscribes to refine your campaigns, not only what to remove from your database!
Database hygiene is about keeping your database fresh and up-to date. You want to make sure that the emails you are sending out are in fact going to valid email addresses that are still in use and to remove anyone who does not open up or want your emails!
There are three main activities to spruce up your database;
1. Management of unsubscribes 2. Management of bounce backs
3. Management of un-opens
Database hygiene
SIGN-UP FOR UPDATES & SAMPLE CHAPTERS: www.easy-digital-marketing.com [email protected] © Veronica Stenberg 2012
Email marketing: database hygieneSAMPLE CHAPTERPAGE: 3
Make sure that you remove anyone who wants to unsubscribe from your database in an quick and efficient manner.
I personally would save these unsubscribes in a seperate list, (or in anyother way) to make sure I have a back-up if I would ever need one, to really make sure in anyway I can, not to email people who have opted out.
Secondly, it can be interesting to be aware of:
How many unsubscribes do you get for each newsletter, compare to previous months and years. This is a great opportunity for you to make sure both content, offer, frequency and segmentation is right.
You have two bounce backs to keep track of:
1. Soft bounces: mainly out of offices (you need to take no action)
2. Hard bounces: this is when an email does not exist anymore (make sure to remove these from your database)
Management of unsubscribes
Management of bouncebacks
Every email you send out is costing you money, make sure that both your time, money and resources are spend wisely.
Therefore its in you economic interest (if nothing else) to make sure you haver a clean database. And that means to not only focus on unsubscribes!
SIGN-UP FOR UPDATES & SAMPLE CHAPTERS: www.easy-digital-marketing.com [email protected] © Veronica Stenberg 2012
Email marketing: database hygieneSAMPLE CHAPTERPAGE: 4
Now here is an interesting thing. People who subscribe, but never opens the newsletters from you or cease to do so after a while. This is a great opportunity for you to re-connect and get infomation to create better camapigns!
I would do the following:
1. Check my newsletter SPAM score once again, maybe there is some-thing going on here. Also check if there is a common denominator with these emails, i.e they are all hotmail addresses for example, then you have a sure sign that your emails are being blocked by hotmail for some reason. Time to investigate!
2. Create a distributionlist from these mysterious subscribers, and sub-sequently a special email to send to this list and these people alone.
This email links to a form with a few simple questions such as:
• Are we boring you? if so, please tell us why • Don’t you like our offers?• Do you think our emails are irrelevant to you?• Do you delete our emails without reading them? • Can we improve? - if so what?
Management of un-opens
Laura - tell us why you dont open our emails and get a free ice cream!
Please take 3 minutes to share with us why you dont open our emails any-more - and we will send you an icecream voucer in return!
Link to questionare >
Are we boring you?
Do you think our emails are unrel-evant to you?
Do you delete our emails without reading them?
Can we improve? - if so what?
GET FREE ICECREAM!
LINKED TO A FORM
SIGN-UP FOR UPDATES & SAMPLE CHAPTERS: www.easy-digital-marketing.com [email protected] © Veronica Stenberg 2012
Email marketing: database hygieneSAMPLE CHAPTERPAGE: 5
Get an incentive, per say its summer, I would search the web for any text services (if I have a number or QR code that can be emailed) - and for every answer, I would give an appropriate gift, such and an ice cream, soda or something from my shop/business.
From this, I will now gain the following:
1. Positive brand top of mind at the people who answered
2. Feedback on why they don’t open my emails that I can improve from
3. Some sort of indication of who still wants to hear from me
4. An indication of who doesn’t and therefore, create a separate list or remove these altogether from my ordinary distribution list and data-base.
Un-opens
Want more tips and hints?
Then go to: www.easy-digital-marketing.com
- and sign-up to receive updates about the progress of the book and more sample chapter releases to learn from.
Easy Digital Marketing will give you a basic understanding of how to use digital marketing effectively for your business or project and covers amongs other subjects: • Email marketing • SEO • Website fundamentals • Social Media• Create your online marketing strategy - and more!
Connect with Veronica
http://blog.veronicastenberg.se @veronicavain [email protected]