Effective E-mail Pruning in MailChimp

Prerequisites

• A MailChimp account (although this concept can be used with any vendor)

• History of having sent a number of campaigns to a list

Why prune your list?

• Avoid getting “blacklisted” by your e-mail vendor

• Lower costs, improve ROI• Better open rates• Reduce or eliminate bounces and spam

abuse complaints

MailChimp’s “member ratings”

• 1 Star- negative rating (unsubscribed and re-subscribed, or soft bounced)

• 2 Star- no activity, never opened or clicked, most likely a new member

• 3 Star- limited activity• 4 Star- a little more activity• 5 Star- lots of activity

The “best customer” segment

• Create a segment of 3-star and above subscribers

• You’ll be sending to only those that have opened or clicked before

• Will most likely dramatically reduce list size

• Send campaigns to this segment for best results

The 2-star subscriber

• Don’t neglect as they may be new to your list

• Create a new segment of just 2-star subscribers that have recently been added to your list

• Send the campaign to them– You may want to include an exclusive offer &

catchy subject line to encourage opening and clicking

Prune with confidence

• Always backup the list to your computer or server

• You may opt to remove those with a 2-star and lower rating who...– Have been on the list for a significant period of

time (start with a year)– Haven’t ever opened or clicked

A case study

• Online retail client– List size was cut by 69%, saving client $75 per

month in fees– Open rate was 2x the industry average– Click rate was almost 2x the industry – Bounces are almost non-existent– No abuse complaints– Only a handful of unsubscribes

About usRick Whittington Consulting is a Richmond, Virginia-based web consulting firm specializing in building effective websites. We work with companies who need their website and online marketing to produce results.

How can we help your company achieve its goals?

Web: http://www.rickwhittington.comE-mail: projects@rickwhittington.com