Welcome again! The email marketing blog series continues. In parts 1 and 2, we explain what email marketing is and how to get started with a list. In today’s blog post, we’ll talk about how to maintain your email list.
You need to nurture, take care of, and learn the preferences of your email list. You see, getting an email list is just the first phase of an email marketing strategy. But after that, you need to constantly take care of it by creating valuable content readers will be interested in. So, you’re not sure how to maintain your email list? Keep reading.
How to Maintain Your Email List: Divide and Conquer
Let’s say your business offers phone systems and you’re targeting diverse industries: healthcare, government, and bookstores, and your email list includes each one of those leads. You could build three lists for each industry, or you could try to make a more general email and sell phone systems to the three at once. Please note, a more personalized message that touches their primary industry pain points would be more effective.
According to HubSpot, subscriber segmentation is the most effective strategy for email marketing campaigns (78%), followed by message personalization (72%). So, transforming your leads email list into three segmented lists would be the way to make communication between you and your subscribers more effective.
This is just an example, but there are many categories in which you could segment your list. The more segmented and specific the list is, the more effective it is.
These are a few categories that you could use to segment your list:
- City
- State
- Industry
- Size of business
- Age
- Service of their interest (if you offer more than one solution)
- Date
- Potential leads
- Purchase history
- Engagement
- And many more!
This exercise can be improved when you start sending your first emails. Data insights will tell you about your audience’s preferences, and you can refine the segmentation you’ve already done.
How to Maintain Your Email List: Let the Content Do the Work
One of the most important aspects of your email marketing is the content itself. The people that have given you their consent for your email list are expecting something in return: whether that be special prices, updates, interesting industry news, etc. Don’t disappoint them!
Tell them how they can use your products’ full potential, how to solve some of their problems, what’s happening in their industry so they can be updated, etc. You’re entering someone’s inbox, so don’t come with empty pockets.
Pro tip: You can ask your audience how often they want to hear from you and which topics interest them (do they only want your newsletters, your blog updates, or your sales announcements?). By doing this, you’re more confident when creating a specific list and content, with higher chances of a better engagement rate.
How to Maintain Your Email List: The Gone but Not Forgotten
Although segmenting your list and creating valuable content are keys of success when it comes to email marketing, there’s some things you’ll learn on the way.
Losing Subscribers
I wish I could tell you I have the secrets to having 0 unsubscribes. But sadly, losing a few subscribers is inevitable. That doesn’t mean you can’t learn from your mistakes or audience.
For example, if you notice that with one single email, you lost more subscribers than average, see what triggered them. Was there too much text? Poor design choices? Not interesting topics?
Low Engagement
Another issue to navigate is subscribers who are not engaging with your emails. You could try new formats with other topics, creating a new list and a re-engagement campaign.
Reviewing data can help you to understand your audience. The information available to you can help you refine your email marketing strategy.
Build Your Email Marketing Strategy with Greenstar Marketing
Believe me, with these tips on how to maintain your email list, you’ve got your plate full! If you are still a little lost with email marketing, fear not. We have more tips coming your way, so stay tuned.
Remember that if you get stuck during your email campaign, you can ask us for help! At Greenstar Marketing, we can help you develop your email marketing strategy and create the content your audience so desperately wants.
Take advantage of the opportunities that email marketing has for you and turn to our experts to start now!
