A common question we hear from small business owners is what to do with their rather old list of email subscribers, especially after not emailing them for a while. This is a tricky answer – there is a lot to consider before you import that list and start sending emails.
Here’s the scenario: A business owner has a list of 2000 people who they did email in the past, even with their permission, but the recipients haven’t heard from them in a year. What should they do?
“Burn the list,” would be the short and direct answer that most email marketing experts will tell you. This snarky reply is supported by industry best practices, past experiences and policies mandated by email service providers. No reputable email service provider like Infusionsoft wants businesses to send to neglected lists older than a year. It makes people unhappy and that’s not cool.
Why is this a problem? Old email marketing lists are dangerous for a number of reasons:
- People don’t remember you. It’s not personal. They simply don’t know “Scott Martineau” from “Clate Mask” after a year’s time.
- Permission isn’t perpetual. Permission usually lasts about 10 months. We’ve seen our own stats indicate that spam complaint rates double after nine months following the opt-in.
- Everyone pays for spam complaints. Whether an email is sent from a shared or dedicated IP, every sender and ESP pays for IP and domain reputation problems, literally.
- People change email addresses, bounce rates soar and ISPs detect it. ISPs now rank your inbox-placement based on previous email attempts. Simply make people crave your email and you’ll land in the inbox.
- Spamtraps hurt. When someone sends messages to an email address-turned-spamtrap, they are playing with fire. Spamtraps usually take the form of old or unpublished email addresses meant to detect spammers. Once you’re listed, expect your deliverability to suffer.
Spam Traps = Bear Traps
The responsibility for getting messages to the inbox is shared between the sender and the email service provider. Do your part and only send email to those who explicitly consented to receiving your messages within the past six months.
Aside from the content itself, an old email list is a danger for your business. Or as our own Email Systems Manager, James Thompson puts it, “Spam traps should be viewed like bear traps. Most ESPs won’t think twice about terminating you if you hit one.” Not only will you upset subscribers, you’ll probably have your email suspended or terminated by your email service provider.
The Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG), an email marketing advocacy group, surveyed Internet users and discovered that 22% of US Internet users consider messages they once requested but no longer want to be spam. That should be concerning especially considering that permission fades after nine months.
If you want to avoid turning your email marketing list into a minefield, I recommend you employ the following tactics to keep it fresh and healthy:
- Always set expectations about the frequency and content. This will buy you a little time so they know at the moment of opt-in what to expect from you and when.
- Use a confirmed-opt-in marketing model. This is sound advice no matter the age of your list, but even more so the older the list becomes. As your list matures beyond nine months, it’s smart to have subscribers elect to stay on your list.
- Respect your audience’s needs and adapt to them. This is tough and takes discipline. Unsubscribing people who bounce frequently, or simply disengaged recipients is a healthy part of email marketing. No one exemplifies this better than Perry Marshall. As a thought leader in the world of PPC and online marketing, he asks recipients to indicate how often they want to hear from him in email. And he respects them!
- Reach out to people who haven’t opened emails in several months. These people are possibly dead weight in your list, but if you want to keep them, give them a phone call or send a direct mail piece to confirm their interest in your list. If they aren’t worth this to your business, they aren’t worth getting a spam complaint from. Remember, if it’s not an affirmative, “yes,” it means “no.” Email reputation provider, ReturnPath, classifies these as Unknown Users, which are basically abandoned email addresses from real people. ISPs score these (negatively) as a way to determine inbox placement.
The bottom line is this: “spam” isn’t necessarily the content. It’s the behavior of who, how, why and when you send messages.
Next week, I’ll share a few examples on how to re-engage your list and get them active again. As a hint, big brands aren’t doing it as well as you could be!
[Image credit: henriquev, sjdunphy]
Posted In: Email Marketing Tips
