Cleaning Your List - 3 Simple Ideas

Cleaning your email list can always be troublesome. You've got people that move and don't update their addresses with you, you've got email addresses of people that never respond. How do you get a cleaner list so that you'll have a better response to your email marketing campaigns in the long-run?

First of all it's all how you've built your list in the first place. If your list is a "double opt-in" list then chances are you're list is pretty clean. But if you've collected email addresses every which way to Sunday like most of us do, you might not be as clean as if all of your email addresses confirmed to get email from you. So what do you do?

1) Re-Opt People In - Sounds crazy, no? I just got a great email from Selling Power Magazine. They must have some old email addresses of people. I get this particular email to an address I don't check very often. In the beginning of their email they included this:

One idea you can do it put the link from your opt-in form we've already created for you in your VR account in the header of your email. Then you'll be sure that these recipients really want your email.

Does VerticalResponse *require* this? No, it's just an idea for you to think about when cleaning your list.

2) Get Rid of the Non Responders - If people haven't opened your email in a year, why pay for mailing them? (Yes, it's Janine, from your Email Service Provider talking. I can't in good conscience not tell you to do this to make a buck.) Maybe you need to call them and ask them why they aren't interested in it. This would give you some good idea as to what you need to change.

3) Get Your Bouncebacks Back! - Call or send them a postcard with a crazy offer to get them back on your list. Convincing someone to come back is cheaper and easier than getting someone new. (Did I say cheap and easy? :-)

That's all I have today, anyone got any other ideas?

Comments

[Joshua Feinberg]

Hi Andy,

Great requests, thanks for contributing! Perfect timing actually as I'm headed to a big development planning meeting on Tuesday. My comments are below:

1.Re-send double opt-in message: A very popular request and high on the priority list for the opt-in form feature. We're actually about to release some great new alert functionality to the opt-in form and I'd like to see the confirmation re-send capabilities as our next addition to this part of the app. We totally understand the need for users to be able to ping their non-confirmed sign-ups at least once more in hopes of getting that registration completed.

2. Delete bouncers: We've recently been discussing the the idea of a mass updater tool within the app that would allow users to handle tasks just like the one you mention. Being able to remove chunks of data in one fell swoop for general housekeeping purposes would be very useful. We're planning to release a list segmentation feature later in Q3 and I think we'd build the mass updater tool around the same type of query logic. More to come on this one for sure but hopefully this gives you a little context around what we're looking to develop.

3. Mail opt-in requests to bouncers: Although you referred to opt-in requests specifically, I think you're referring to an easy way to re-set bounces to establish (or re-establish) communication. Is this correct? Due to the strict policies of many ISPs, we can't allow users to globally re-set all bounces and continue to mail these names as this can lead to delivery issues for VR. That said, we in the process of enhancing our bounce system to be even more intelligent with incoming bounce data. The byproduct of these enhancements: (a) Allow recipient to receive up to 3 campaigns if their address has soft bounced, before marking it as undeliverable (b) Allow users to re-subscribe and re-mail soft bounces that fall into a "safe" category. The rules around "safe" are still being thought through but it would be for addresses that may have had a temporary failure and are not deemed to be problematic based on the ISP-specific rules that VR tracks.

4. Delete Non-Responders: I think this is really the same type of tool as mentioned in # 2. In this case the mass updating could be run against campaign data rather than mailing list data. We'd allow you to define the criteria and then you make the call for how the records should be treated, etc.

5. Mail reminder to Non-Responders: You can actually get access to your Non-Responder data now for each campaign and auto-load it as a new campaign. My guess is that you're looking for an automated way to handle this for specific and/or all campaigns which is also something we're planning to roll out in early '08 with event/time-based triggers.

Again, thanks for the great feedback and please keep it coming. We'll keep you (and the others in the blogosphere) updated on our progress.

Sincerely,

Josh Feinberg
VP, Product Management
VerticalResponse, Inc

[Andy Sernovitz]

These are great ideas!

So make it easy for us. Please add the following buttons to the control panel:

Re-send double-opt-in message
Delete bouncers
Mail opt-in request to bouncers
Delete non-responders
Mail reminder to non-responders

I want one-click access to best practices!

[Richard Huffaker]

Hi Cindy,

You can add bounced addresses back into your list on an individual basis by going to Mailing List Management>Search Lists, searching for the address, and then editing the address to change the status from "bounced" to "manually uploaded".

You can add bounced addresses back in on a larger scale by contacting support by phone (866-683-7842), live chat, or at the support@verticalresponse.com email address. They'll be able to help you get everything going.

Also, if you're suspicious some of your addresses are bouncing for invalid reasons, I'd like to hear more about it. Please feel free to send some of those email addresses over to delivery@verticalresponse.com. We can look up the reason the individual addresses are bouncing and find out what needs to be done to resolve the problem.

Hope this helps!

Richard Huffaker
Manager, ISP Relations & Policy Enforcement
VerticalResponse, Inc.

[CindyF]

Question: How exactly do I get my bouncing addys back in? I suspect that some of my bounces are due to spam catchers. Having our recipients white-list the VR sending address doesn't seem to help. BTW, my lists are loaded fresh for every campaign (after our sales force synchs their ACT contact base), but seems if an email recipient bounces once they bounce forever. Sorry, long question. Maybe you can point me to a FAQ?

[Joshua Feinberg]

Hi Ramon,

There are no dumb questions, thanks for your feedback! To get access to all your Responder data (those who clicked and opened) and Non-Responder data (those who didn't click, open, bounce or unsubscribe) simply access the Download Lists tab of your Summary Report for any sent campaign.

From here you can get access to the specific recipients who opened your message and if they clicked a link we'll also tell you which ones. This data can be exported out of your account but it can also be quickly uploaded as a brand new mailing list so you can get new messages out to your best (and most responsive) customers.

Hope this helps, happy emailing!

Josh Feinberg
VP, Product Management
VerticalResponse, Inc

[Joshua Feinberg]

Hi Lori,

Thanks for the post, let's dive into your questions. VR classifies a Non-Responder as anyone who didn't open, click, bounce or unsubscribe based on the tracking that we provide for sent campaigns. This information can be viewed/downloaded from the "Download Lists" section of the Summary Report for your sent campaign.

Non-Responder reporting is not a 100% accurate stat because the individual settings of a recipient's mail program can produce mixed results. For example, your comment with regard to the preview pane is a good one since this will in fact be counted as an "open" if the person's mail program is set to display images by default. Misleading? Yes, but unfortunately it's all based on the mailbox preferences of the end user.

That said, the data provided on Non-Responders is still valuable as you can isolate these records and try to get them to convert or take an action through a follow up message or special offer. But as Janine said, if you're still mailing to the same Non-Responders after 12 months you may want to think about scrubbing those folks off your email list as they may never take an action or "respond."

[Ramon Greenwood]

Okay, so I'm as dumb as a post, but I have this question:

How do I know who does or doesn't open?

Ramon Greenwood

[Lisa Harvey]

I'm wondering what the result of the re-opt-in message was. I've been thinking of doing this with my list but afraid I will lose a huge percentage of my list simply because people can't be bothered responding.

[Lori Greenberg]

How do you know if someone is a non-responder? If they read it in, say, the preview pane of their Outlook email program (like I do) technically they haven't opened the mail, right? Are they considered a non-responder? And how do you know who those people are?

I think it's time for me to get to know my VR better!