Top Tips For Improving The Value Of Your List

Previously we’ve addressed that email marketing isn’t going away anytime soon. In fact, quite the opposite it’s still the preferred means by both B2B marketers and consumers for several reasons including driving direct sales, being inexpensive, supporting sales through other channels and building relationships. Plus, it moves the conversation about your products and services to a more personal environment – the in-box.

Keeping the importance of email communications in mind, let’s discuss some top tips according to Marketing Sherpa on how to improve the value of your email list.

1. Nurture your client relationship. As with most facets of our business, email marketing is built upon relationships. When these relationships are properly nurtured, and recipients are given the suitable respect and receive what they’ve requested, the better the relationship will be and more valuable you will become to them.

2. Establish (and deliver upon) expectations. When brands take the time from the start of the relationship to inform new subscribers of what they will deliver, this yields more long-term subscribers, as they will be more in the know and happy to check their in-box.

3. Be able to accommodate rising customer skepticism. In a world of constant in-box cluster, the determining factors of what is or isn’t spam have become increasingly muddled. Thus, paying attention to unscrupulous email practices and understanding things like graymail better will help address these rising concerns.

4. Know how to encourage interaction and appease customer desires. Here are a number of ways to promote this interaction.

• Preference centers. To address the occupation and lifestyle changes along with the evolving needs of their subscribers, organisations have developed robust preference centers. These pages allow subscribers to select specific product categories and message types (e.g. special offers vs. product education). When subscribers share more about themselves, marketers can advance their messaging to reflect external relevance factors.

• Opt-down or paused subscriptions. Inside a preference center, or on the unsubscribe page, marketers can give customers more options to “opt down” rather than “opting out.” The opt-down can include reducing frequency and changing offer types or subject matter topics. Another approach is to offer a paused subscription, which allows the recipient to set the date the email deliver will stop and start up again.

• Unsubscribes. Though seemingly unorthodox, giving customers the chance to unsubscribe from all sends can actually promote more brand loyalty and customer interaction. You can’t go wrong if your unsubscribe links are user-friendly and easy to find for subscribers. The alternative could do more harm than good.

5. Understand the cornerstones of quality lists. The following maps out the secret behind the success of well-performing email lists.

• Exclusivity. Email provides prime real estate to carry a company’s best offer, so use this channel to promote that to your subscribers. It will peak interest and add value to your campaigns.

• Uniqueness. Differentiate yourself from other competitors and give subscribers something that’s one-of-a-kind that they cannot get anywhere else. So go ahead and offer something different and original.

• Humility. Content is key. There is nothing more important than keeping the promise to deliver exactly what the subscriber requested, and nothing more. The majority of email messages should contain valuable information in the form of reports, entertaining videos and insightful stories, not endless self-promotion.

By addressing the above-mentioned ways to improve the value of your email list, you should be able to further the value exchange-your valuable information for your prospect’s valued time leading to the growth of your overall business.