When you decide to use email marketing as a way of promoting your business, it’s not just a matter of sending your subscribers your monthly promotions or newsletters. There are things to consider to help avoid complications. While there are many ways to grow your email list, there are also some things you can do to maintain your list and avoid high unsubscribe rates.
There are laws and rules such as the CAN-SPAM Act that have been implemented to help protect the privacy of internet users from spamming and unwanted emails. Because of the low cost and high return of email marketing many companies have implemented it into their marketing strategy. This has also increased the number of promotional emails that users see in their inbox, however, email marketing remains one of the top effective strategies for promoting your business. It is reported that for every dollar spent on email marketing, an average of $44 dollar return on investment is realized. (Source: Campaign Monitor, 2016)
It is essential that you keep your email marketing list clean and manageable. Many email marketing platforms such as Constant Contact and MailChimp allow you to segment your list. (Segmented email campaigns have an open rate that is 14.32% higher than non-segmented campaigns). For example, say you have email signup forms on your website and Facebook and you only want to email subscribers who registered from your website. Or you want to email everyone who clicked on a link in your last campaign. Segmenting your email marketing list makes it easy to perform these tasks.
Here Are 5 things to Avoid When Emailing Your List.
1: Be aware of bounced emails.
Bounced emails, also known as undeliverable messages, are those messages that, for whatever reason, were not successfully received by the intended recipient.
Most email marketing solutions will remove bounced emails so that you don’t continue to send them. However, you’re responsible for managing your list.
2: Always provide an unsubscribe link when sending emails.
When someone in your list files a request to be unsubscribed, always take that request seriously. If you don’t take them off your list and keep sending them your e-mails, you are now sending them spam mail. When you are reported as a spammer, you and your business can get into a lot of trouble. You can be reported to the authorities and maybe blacklisted by many internet service providers. You run the risk of losing subscribers and being removed from your email marketing provider’s system.
3: Don’t import new emails into your system that are more than 2 years old.
This happens often and it’s the quickest way to get a high bounce rate. Even worse, many unsuspecting subscribers will mark your email as spam, resulting in risks. Most businesses gather emails from their customers when they make purchases, so it’s not uncommon for a business to have gathered thousands of emails over time. There’s a risk in sending emails to list that are more than 2 years old because in most cases if you’re just getting started in email marketing chances are you’ve either never sent them an email or you’ve not sent an email in some time. I recommend that if you have a large email marketing list, have it verified before you import it into your email marketing solution. Emailable and BriteVerify are two popular services. These services verify each email in your list to make sure that it’s valid. This will reduce your bounce rate.
4: Don’t send emails to your list using a public domain email address.
Public emails are emails that end with @Gmail.com, @Yahoo.com, and other free email service providers. In most cases, these emails will be listed as spam and your subscribers won’t see them. It’s best to send an email campaign from your business’ domain For example [email protected]. This will help you with your deliverability. This also negatively affects your brand. It can give the impression that you’re not an established business or that you’re not professional. The opposite is also true. Having a branded email promotes your brand and creates brand awareness.
5: Avoid costly mistakes and know the law.
The CAN-SPAM Act is a federal law and each violation can cost you up to $40,654. Fortunately, the law isn’t complicated and it’s very clear as to what you should and shouldn’t do.
