We’re big fans of email marketing here at Skittish. Email marketing done well, that is. Whether you’re just starting out with email marketing or you’ve been sending emails for a while, an area often overlooked is the act of cleansing your email list. It often seems counterintuitive as you’re essentially removing people from your list and reducing the size of your audience, but there are some very good reasons to do it.
What do we mean by cleansing your email list?
“Cleansing” simply means we’re removing emails from our list. These are often email addresses of people who have not opened or interacted with us in some time, or they could be emails we’ve had on our list for years and the addresses no longer exist. They could also be emails that have consistently bounced when we’ve sent emails in the past. Email lists need cleansing to keep them up to date.
3 reasons to cleanse your email list
#1: Improve open rates (and click rates)
You’ll often find that open rates can dwindle over time and whilst there are ways in which we can improve open rates with carefully crafted subject lines, much of this decline can be down to natural churn in our audience. People move jobs, change roles and our emails can become less relevant to them.
By removing people who never open your emails, you’re refining your database and only sending emails to people who are genuinely interested in what you have to say. You’ll find you’ll have the same number of opens and clicks, but the overall percentage will be improved, thus improving your reports.
#2: Reduce bounce rate and spam complaints
Cleansing your email list can improve your delivery rates as your list no longer contains email addresses that are no longer valid. You’re also more likely to land in the inbox (and not the spam folder) of the people remaining on your list as they usually open and interact with your emails – a signal to their email service provider that they find these emails valuable.
If someone never opens your emails, it might be that they find them irritating and irrelevant and so simply click delete as soon as they land. Continuing to send emails to these recipients runs the risk of them getting frustrated, unsubscribing and reporting the email as spam. An increased number of spam complaints can affect future delivery rates and potentially get your account with your email marketing provider banned or restricted.
#3: Save money
Many email marketing platforms charge a monthly fee based on the size of your email list. If your email list contains lots of recipients who never open your email, you’re paying to have ‘non-responders’ in your list. By cleansing your email list, you’re reducing the size of your database, meaning you’re only paying to market to people who are genuinely interested in what you do, thus reducing your marketing spend and who doesn’t want that?
Summary
If you’re new to email marketing, you’ll want to cleanse your list before you start sending emails. There’s nothing more disheartening than sending your first email campaign only for half the emails to bounce, unsubscribe or just never open the email. If you’ve been sending email campaigns for a while, cleansing your email list will instantly improve your open and engagement rates and really optimise your targeting. We’d recommend cleansing your list every 6 months, removing anyone who hasn’t open any emails you’ve sent them in that time. This will ensure your audience remains engaged and your email software bill remains low!
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