Email Spring Cleaning: 4 Easy Ways

Just a few months ago, New Year’s resolutions were the highlight of many direct email marketing conversations.

With the best intentions, businesses set out to grow their lists by the thousands and send more targeted, relevant messages. They made lists and reviewed last year’s figures, invigorated by the new year and certain that they could increase click through rates and ROI by leaps and bounds.

Perhaps you even set lofty goals for your own campaign, only to be sidetracked by more pressing issues. If you’ve temporarily put your resolutions on the back burner, refocus your efforts with these spring cleaning techniques.

Dust Off Your Messages

Dust Off Your Messages

You should treat old emails like attic treasures. Just like you stash your belongings away, only to rediscover them in a flurry of excitement later on, take a close look at your existing messages and examine the available reports for your account.

The Verified Subscribers report shows exactly how many people have confirmed their subscription in the past 30 days. If you aren’t satisfied with your current results, re-purpose your old confirmation email to make it sparkle.

The Follow Up Totals report displays the total number of clicks and opens for each message. If necessary, change up your content to make it more conversational and engaging and fine tune your follow up messages to reflect questions that you frequently receive from subscribers. Examine your subject lines and determine if they are compelling and consistent enough to click through.

Using templates? Make sure your messages look good in all email clients – test them.

Polish Your Web Forms

Polish Your Web Forms

If you haven’t tried the new Web Form Generator yet, now is the time.

Make your forms shine without any HTML knowledge whatsoever. You can create visually appealing forms that give your website a more polished and professional look in only 5 minutes.

Because you don’t need to edit the HTML for your page each time you work on your form, you can make changes whenever you want without a hassle – you could even try seasonal templates if you’re feeling festive.

Campaign Overhaul: Renovating Emails and Forms

Campaign Overhaul: Renovating Emails and Forms

When you’re poring over various reports and rewriting entire message sequences, how can you be sure that the changes you’re making are the best for your email marketing efforts? By split testing, of course.

Split testing lets you conduct a controlled experiment with your sign up forms and messages to help to see which factors make them perform better for your campaigns.

Web Forms

Split testing web forms lets you evaluate:

Which type of form works best for you (e.g.pop-over vs. inline)

How many fields you should use

Which field labels work best

Whether or not your headline copy is compelling enough

Email Messages

Split test your new messages against your old ones to learn…

Does sending in the morning work better than sending in the afternoon?

Does using a button instead of a text link get me more clicks?

Does subject line personalization get you more, or fewer, opens?

For accurate results, split test broadcasts can only be created for lists that have at least 100 active subscribers.

Revive Your List With Some Careful Pruning

Revive Your List With Some Careful Pruning

Yard work goes hand in hand with spring cleaning, and it’s common landscaping knowledge that most plants benefit from regular maintenance. Take a cue from mother nature – with careful pruning, your list can flourish.

This is not to say that you should immediately unsubscribe anyone who hasn’t opened recent emails.

Consider the number of disengaged subscribers on your list. To start, search for subscribers that haven’t opened a message in 3-6 months. Are there a lot of them?

Resist the urge to channel your inner Edward Scissorhands; don’t delete them them – try to reengage them first!

Think about what you offer in your emails. If your product is seasonal, are those subscribers really inactive? Perhaps they are simply not opening your messages because they are familiar with your brand and assume that they will still receive emails when they are ready to purchase.

What are Your Housekeeping Plans?

Are you clearing out your unsubscribes anyway, despite our advice to think it over? Rewriting messages?

We’d love to hear what you’re doing next with your lists! Share your thoughts below.

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14 Comments

  1. Cory Grassell

    Some very excellent points! Thanks for the refreshing content. We just launched a new email campaign, from a quarterly newsletter to a monthly. This is helping us achieve more visibility and leads in the marketplace. Also, we rebranded and redesigned our custom template to give us an up-to-date look and relevant messaging. Next up, split-run testing and better list management.

    3/25/2010 8:29 am
  2. sandip

    Think about what you offer in your emails. If your product is seasonal, are those subscribers really inactive? Perhaps they are simply not opening your messages because they are familiar with your brand and assume that they will still receive emails when they are ready to purchase.

    3/25/2010 10:31 am
  3. Bill Cowan

    Great post Beth, Now all I need is a list … LOL …I have one but I need to do exactly what you’re talking about. I really appreciate this post and understand how valuable it can be to me. Thanks

    3/25/2010 11:37 am
  4. william

    Hi Guys/Gals
    Just letting you know I need, love and appreciate these updates.

    I have had little success as of yet on my email list building. Fear!!??
    I have only been concentrating on traffic numbers to the blogs for the last three months.
    Now is the time for the list building moves.
    Email sequences have slowed down my progress.
    Just the thought of regular email updates in an organized manner
    has caused grave concern for me. I need help!
    An update on email sequences would be of great help for me to get going.

    The forms generation have become easier now after a month of practice.

    It is the follow up emails?,Newsletter? or what to start with that I need a director to help me with.
    Thanks for this opportunity to communicate with you guys/gals.

    3/25/2010 1:47 pm
  5. Tamar Goldstein

    What do you mean-"are you clearing out your unsubscribes anyway despite our advice to think it over" or are you referring to emails you(we) unsubscribe from this end ?

    If they’ve unsubscribed you can’t email them anymore can you?

    How do you search for subscribers who haven’t opened their emails for a specific time?

    Thanks

    Tamar

    3/25/2010 5:27 pm
  6. Pat Parsons

    Great information. i’m just getting started and I believe it’s info like this that will get me running quickly.

    3/25/2010 7:03 pm
  7. Zenny

    Will Its give me alot of idea What to do next,Thanks a million i still need alot to learn.

    3/25/2010 9:34 pm
  8. Rebecca Swayze

    Thank you all for your feedback! I’m glad these tips were helpful.

    Tamar -

    When I asked "are you clearing out your unsubscribes anyway, despite our advice to think it over?" I just wanted to see if any readers manually go through and delete their unsubscribed addresses, or if they keep them for further consideration. (For instance, you can identify trends this way. If most addresses unsubscribe after message #5 in your series, you can work on the content in that particular message.)

    You are correct, if someone is unsubscribed you can no longer email them.

    To find subscribers who haven’t opened your messages in a specific time, you would perform a search by clicking on the Subscribers tab, then Search. In the first drop down menu, select "Message Not Opened" and then the appropriate dates to the right of that. (Please note: you must have Analytics to do this. Get in touch with our Customer Solutions team if you aren’t sure, they are always happy to help!)

    3/26/2010 2:15 pm
  9. Tamar Goldstein

    Thanks for your reply Rebecca.

    3/26/2010 5:43 pm
  10. Mike

    I think it would be smart to send them a survey to target them better. Sure, you will get some unsubscribes, but the value earned from the targeted information should outweigh the cost.

    3/30/2010 8:23 pm
  11. Bill Jacques

    Just a grammatical tip: the word "pouring" was used in the section on Campaign Overhaul. The correct word is "poring" for the sense in which it was used.

    4/2/2010 12:27 pm
  12. Amanda Gagnon

    Bill,
    Thanks for catching that!

    4/5/2010 8:08 am
  13. W. F.

    Great! Thank you. I like your article.

    6/29/2010 7:33 am
  14. mamss

    Great! Thank you. :D

    9/24/2010 12:09 am

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