make the most of your data
We've read several articles recently talking about reactivating your dormant email addresses from your lists.
This idea started us thinking about data in general, and how email marketing relies on data collection and data hygiene.
So here are a few hints and tips regarding data, which will provide you with some low cost ways of improving your email marketing.
data collection
Collecting data is a long and torturous process, but if done correctly will naturally improve your open and click-through rates. Getting it right at this stage will make your email marketing much easier later on.
personal contact
Think about how many people you meet in business over the course of a month. Multiply that over the year and you have a huge variety of interested, qualified, quality data ready and waiting for your message.
Every time you meet and greet, you have an opportunity to collect an email address. Ask them to give you a business card and keep a record of where and when you collected the information.
Once you have the email address, send them an email saying where and when you met and let them know what to expect from you in future. This will give them the opportunity to unsubscribe if they do not wish to communicate with you – keeping your data clean from the start.
Keeping the promises that you make in that initial email will prove you are a reputable company and will help your brand reputation. This will help ensure your company is front of mind when they need your product or service.
website
Don’t forget about your website. How much do you spend in time and resources getting people to your website? Don’t let them leave your website without collecting their data in some form.
All that search engine optimisation (SEO), Pay Per Click advertising (PPC) and money is going to waste if you miss the opportunity to collect their details. For example, a subscription to your newsletter or enquiry form.
newzapp can provide the HTML code you need to create a subscription (sign up) form on your website. Those online sign ups will then be added to a group of your choice in your newzapp account.
If you're a newzapp customer you can email us to request your subscription form code here.
purchasing data
If you’re going to buy data always remember - quality not quantity. If the data you're purchasing seems too good to be true, it probably is. Typically an email address should cost you around 20p per contact.
An email address is worth money to you. If you're buying data it's important that you achieve return on investment (ROI).
One of the purposes of emailing prospects and customers is to maintain brand awareness. This ensures you're the first company they think of when they need your product or service. They may also be sharing the information you send with others, which increases your exposure.
Quality data should be emails that are specific to your industry and they should be decision makers. There's no point putting your product or service in front of the wrong person.
There are a few key questions to ask when you purchase data.
- when was it collected?
The fresher it is the better. Email addresses can go out of data very quickly.
- where was it collected?
Online? In person? What is the optimum medium for your industry?
- is it opt in?
In other words did they have to check a box to say they want to receive related information?
- is there a bounced email policy?
You are likely to get some bounces. It's worth setting an agreement with your provider regarding bounces. Most reputable providers will offer you replacement email addresses for any that bounce over a certain percentage.
data hygiene
When was the last time you did some house keeping? Your current data may not be up to date. Have a look at the following in your last few campaigns:
email addresses that have not opened your email.
To maintain your data hygiene you could take the email addresses that don't open your campaigns from your account. However you shouldn't completely discount a non open. Email service providers track campaigns using images and links. For an email to be reported as opened, the images must have been downloaded or a link clicked. An email address showing as a non open could still have read your campaign but may have received text only version or viewed it with images turned off.
The next step is to send a reconfirmation email to this group encouraging a response to confirm they're still active.
Before deleting the contacts that not confirmed as active, send one final email. This could include a notice of removal from your mailing list if they fail to respond and outline the benefits of receiving your emails. Once you have sent this email you can decide whether to delete the contact, or move them to a separate group that will only receive occasional emails.
Reconfirmation email ideas
You could include a set of questions about preferred content, or a strong call to action to contact you or click. It’s worth providing an incentive for your recipients to take action. Then review the results to see who responded.
bounces
There are two difference types of bounces, they can be soft or hard.
Soft bounces are email addresses that can receive emails, but failed on this occasion. For example: Inbox is full or over quota. These are worth trying again.
Hard bounces are email addresses that will never receive an email. For example, domain or user unknown. These should be removed from your account to save your email quota.
It is good practice to regularly monitor and cleanse bounces from your database to keep your data clean.
newzapp automatically removes hard bounces for you and on lite and professional accounts will remove all soft bounces which have bounced 3 times in a row. enterprise accounts can change the soft bounce threshold if desired.
If manage and maintain your data on a regular basis you will reap vast rewards in terms of readership, click-throughs and revenue.