How to Drive Your Email List Strategy

We’re all looking to get more revenue. And why not get it with email? As your highest performing channel, it can deliver a whopping return of $36 for every $1 you spend. But whether you’re seeing those results works hand-in-hand with your email list strategy: Your subscribers–new and existing– are your path to revenue. When you deliver a great subscriber experience, you see major benefits to your campaigns, including:

• Better email deliverability
• Improved inbox placement
• Engagement
• Pipeline
• Repeat buyers

But like anything in email marketing, your email list strategy requires planning to be effective. Here are three best practices to keep in mind.

List cleansing & data hygiene requires consistency

Continuing to email people who are no longer interested hurts your brand reputation and could land you in the junk folder, affecting even your best customers. If you haven’t performed any list or data hygiene recently, the number of subscribers you need to move from your active list to a winback group could be high.

But part of your email list strategy requires prioritizing quality over quantity. Focus on your objective. For example, are you trying to achieve a certain level of email engagement? Keeping that as your guiding light will help you stay true to what you need to do. And remember, you can try to win back some of your inactive subscribers before you stop emailing them all together.

Personalization is pivotal to subscriber experience

Effective email personalization demands going beyond {first name} in the subject line.

Personalization is the whole experience: from opt-in point to type of content to your email preference center.

The flow you have at one subscription point may not drive the best experience at another point. Testing is key. Start small. Optimize one point at a time if you need to. You can check out the idea of micro-efficiencies and being agile here.

Document your opt-in points in one spot

Understanding how subscribers are joining your list (channel, form type, etc.) and their opt-in rates, combined with their subscriber quality score all in one spot, gives you a single view into your email acquisition strategy. What’s working? What’s not? What can be optimized?

This is your blueprint on what to tackle and in what order. We have a full, recommended list of things to consider in this ebook.

Get the full scoop

There’s a lot more that goes into email lists to help you drive more revenue. We dive deeper in the ebook, The Marketer’s Guide to Revenue: Email Lists, to help you understand how to:

• Assess your current list—complete with strategies and tactics.
• Find new subscribers, optimize their opt-in experience, and keep them on your list.
• Incorporate your list strategy into an ongoing part of your program.