Digital Spin by SubscriberMail

A clean list may require a little dirty work.

Posted by George Palatine on April 29th, 2009

Communicating with your customers via email marketing is one of the most cost effective marketing channels a company can utilize. Unfortunately, bad email addresses that result in a hard bounce are a way of life for email marketers. I mentioned a few weeks ago about how you can use 3rd party services to analyze your post deployment in-box receipts. This is still a great solution for assistance in managing challenge/response triggers, identifying customers who reply back to your message or bounces that provide some type of forwarding information. But what about all of the others?

If every customer on your list is important to you (and they should be), it might be time to roll up your sleeves and do some low-tech list hygiene. The first thing you need to do is identify your hard bounce addresses. You will need to include in this query as much data about your customer as you have on file. Preparing this report should be quite easy if you have a well developed CRM solution in place, otherwise it may require a little IT assistance. (If possible include sales history so you can focus on your top customers first.)

So now that you have your list (and any supporting contact information) you will need to identify all the ways (outside of email) you can communicate with these individuals in order to get an updated email address.

• Do you have sales reps assigned to customers? Divide up your list and have each representative verify the email addresses with their customer base – who knows, this may even result in a sale.
• Do you have an inbound sales department? Flag the customers in your order entry/CRM system who have bad addresses and have the agents ask for an update when they speak to them on the phone.
• Do you send statements or invoices (via snail mail) to customers? Include a “statement stuffer” asking people to update their contact information. Similarly you can send a postcard asking the same question. Ideally, you would drive individuals to an online preference center but, this could also be accomplished via a telephone call to an agent. Since this method requires a bit more work on behalf of your customers, you may want to offer some type of incentive.
• Do you have a customer service department? Divide up your bounce list by each agent and have them make calls during “down time.” Develop a contest out of who can get the most updates. Don’t have a customer service department? How about an intern or an outside call center?
• Have a brick and mortar presence? Have sales people confirm a customers email address at the point of sale and offer them the opportunity to sign up if they are not already on the list.
• Do you manage an ecommerce site? Try flagging a customer’s record so the next time they login they are prompted to update their profile.

Do not forget however the importance of adhering to email marketing best practices and CAN-SPAM compliance during these hygiene efforts. If you receive an email update via a non-technical method (telephone, in person, post card, etc.), it is highly recommended that you immediately send that customer an email to “officially” let them opt-in. This extra step will also verify that the address you were given is accurate and that it was input correctly.

Understanding the rank order value of each customer within your organization can also be used to dictate how aggressive your hygiene efforts are. So get creative and look around your organization for all the opportunities you can use to keep your list updated.

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• Category: Email Marketing Strategy
• Tags: Effective Email Strategy, Email List Management, Email Marketing Best Practices