Whether you’re a new blogger or have been blogging for years, email list management should be a top priority. Not only does a large email list give you a wider audience to reach with your content, but it also allows you to build deeper relationships with your readers.
As a 6-figure blogger who specializes in affiliate marketing, I’ve learned a thing or two about email list management. In this post, I’m going to share my top tips for managing your email list, as well as the best tools to use.
List Management Best Practices
1) Segment Your Email List
If you’re a blogger, chances are you’ve been advised to start building an email list from day one. And for good reason – an email list is one of the most valuable assets a blogger can have. It allows you to build a relationship with your audience, promote your content, and sell your products or services. But to do any of those things effectively, you need to segment your list.
What is List Segmentation?
List segmentation is the process of dividing your email list into smaller groups or contact tags based on certain criteria. For example, you might segment your list by location, interests, or even past behavior. Once you’ve segmented your list, you can send more targeted and relevant emails to each group. As a result, you’ll see higher open and click-through rates, and eventually better conversions.
Most email marketing tools make it easy to segment your list.
Why Segmenting Your List is Important
If you want to be successful with email marketing, you need to send emails that your audience wants to read. That’s where segmentation comes in. By sending more targeted emails to specific contact tags which make a smaller group of people, you’re more likely to pique their interest and get them to engage with your content.
How to Segment Your List
There are a few different ways you can segment your list. The most common methods are by location, interests, past behavior, or purchase history.
Location: If you have a blog about travel, it makes sense to segment your list by location. That way, you can send emails with information about local events or attractions that would be relevant to your subscribers in that area.
Interests: Another popular method of segmenting lists is by interests. This is especially effective if you have a blog with multiple topics covered.
For example, if you have a food blog that covers recipes, cooking tips, and restaurant reviews, you might segment your list into three different groups – those interested in recipes, those interested in cooking tips, and those interested in restaurant reviews.
That way, you can send Each group emails that are specifically tailored to their interests.
Past behavior: You can also segment your list based on how subscribers have interacted with your emails in the past. For example, if someone has opened and clicked through several of your emails, they’re likely more engaged than someone who has never opened one of your emails.
You can put engaged subscribers into a separate group and send them different (and usually more) content than what you’d send to someone who isn’t engaged.
Purchase history: Finally, another common way to segment lists is by purchase history. This is especially relevant for bloggers who sell products or services but can also be used if you have sponsored posts or use affiliate links.
For example, let’s say you sell e-books on Amazon about starting a blog. You could put anyone who has purchased one of those e-books into a separate group and then send them information about other blogging resources that they might be interested in – like web hosting services or WordPress themes.
I use Mailerlite which allows me to put my contacts in a specific group, as well as segment. In this case, groups are the same as contact tags that other email list management software platforms use.
Keap is another great choice for larger businesses that might need more features like invoicing and e-commerce integrations.
2) Automate Your Email Marketing
Email marketing can be a lot of work – coming up with content, designing emails, and sending them out regularly. But it doesn’t have to be that way. There are plenty of ways to automate your email marketing so you can spend less time working on it, and more time doing other things. Be sure to avoid sending emails to unengaged subscribers by only sending emails where you have explicit permission.
Here are a few ways to automate your email marketing:
Use an email marketing service: There are plenty of great email marketing services out there that will take care of the heavy lifting for you. All you need to do is come up with the content and design, and they’ll take care of sending it out to your list.
Some popular email marketing services are Mailerlite, ConvertKit, and Constant Contact.
Schedule your emails in advance: If you’re using an email marketing service, you can usually schedule your emails in advance. This way, you can batch all your email content together and get it all done in one day. Then, you can set it and forget it.
Your emails will go out on the schedule you’ve set, and you don’t have to worry about it again until it’s time to come up with new content.
Mailerlite allows you to schedule your emails weeks, or even months, in advance. You can also set up auto-resending for any email that doesn’t get opened the first time around.
Use an email template: Templates can be a great way to automate your email marketing. Once you’ve designed a template that you like, you can use it over and over again for all your emails. This way, you don’t have to start from scratch each time you want to send an email.
Mailerlite, my choice of email marketing software, has some great email templates that you can use, or you can design your own. I can send an email campaign to my subscriber list in less than 10 minutes using a template.
3) Keep Your Email List Clean
One of the best ways to improve your email deliverability is to keep your email subscribers list clean. A clean email list is a list of subscribers who are still interested in hearing from you. They’re engaged, they open and click through your emails, and they don’t mark you as spam or get filtered to a spam folder.
On the other hand, a dirty email list is full of subscribers who are no longer interested in your content or who have marked you as spam. These are the people you want to get rid of.
With marketing automation tools like Mailerlite, it’s easy to keep your list clean. You can set up an unsubscribe form so people can easily unsubscribe if they want to, and you can set up a spam filter so people who mark you as spam get automatically unsubscribed.
There are a few ways to keep your email list clean:
Remove inactive subscribers: If someone hasn’t opened one of your emails from an email campaign in 6 months, they’re probably not interested in hearing from you anymore.
You can remove them from your list so you’re not paying to send emails to people who will never read them. Your marketing efforts will be much more effective if you’re only sending emails to people who actually want to receive theme, therefore keeping a healthy list.
Mailerlite allows you to see how long it’s been since someone has opened one of your emails. If they haven’t opened an email in 6 months, you can remove them from your list with a few clicks.
Send re-engagement campaigns: If you have subscribers who haven’t opened your emails in a while, but you’re not ready to give up on them yet, you can try sending re-engagement campaigns. This is just a reminder email letting them know they’re still subscribed and asking if they’re still interested in hearing from you.
If they don’t respond, you can go ahead and remove them from your list. If they do respond, great! You know they’re still interested and you can keep them on your list.
Mailerlite makes it easy to send a re-engagement campaign to all your inactive subscribers with just a few clicks.
Unsubscribe people who mark you as spam: If someone marks you as spam, they’re telling you they never want to hear from you again. So there’s no point in keeping them on your list. Unsubscribe them and move on.
Mailerlite will automatically unsubscribe anyone who marks you as spam so you don’t have to worry about it.
By keeping your email list clean, you’re making sure that the people on your list are still interested in hearing from you. This will improve your deliverability and make it more likely that your emails will end up in people’s inboxes instead of their spam folders.
4) Use a Double Opt-In Process
A double opt-in process is when someone subscribes to your email list and then they get an email asking them to confirm their subscription. This might seem like extra work, but it’s a great way to improve your email deliverability.
When someone subscribes to your list, they’re usually just giving you their email address. They might not even remember signing up for your emails. So when they get an email from you, they might not recognize it and mark it as spam.
However, if they have to confirm their subscription, they’re more likely to remember signing up for your emails. This means they’re more likely to open and click through your emails when they get them.
Mailerlite makes it easy to set up a double opt-in process for your email list.
5) Don’t Buy Email Lists
Buying email lists is never a good idea. First of all, it’s against the law. Second of all, it’s a surefire way to get your emails marked as spam.
When you buy an email list, you’re getting a list of people who have never heard of you and who didn’t sign up to receive your emails. So when they get an email from you, they have no idea who you are and they’re likely to mark it as spam.
You’re marketing efforts will pay off by growing your email list organically. This might take a little longer, but it’s worth it in the long run.
6) Fix or Remove Invalid Email Addresses
If you have invalid email addresses on your list, it can hurt your deliverability. Invalid email addresses are email addresses that are no longer active or that never existed in the first place.
When you try to send an email to an invalid address, it bounces back and this can hurt your sender’s reputation. So it’s important to remove invalid email addresses from your email database.
Your email marketing strategy should include regular email list management activities such as bad email addresses.
7) Spend Time on Email Subject Lines
Your subject line is the most important part of your email. It’s what determines whether or not people will open and read your email. Proper email list management includes spicing up those subject lines.
Here are a few tips for writing great subject lines:
Keep it short: A good rule of thumb is to keep your subject lines under 50 characters.
Make it actionable: Tell people what they need to do when they read your email. For example, “learn how to improve your email deliverability.”
Use numbers and symbols: People are more likely to open an email if it has a number or symbol in the subject line. For example, “7 tips for improving your email deliverability.”
Use keywords: Include keywords that are relevant to your business and that people might search for. For example, “email marketing tips.”
8) Personalize Your Emails for Blog Subscribers
Another great way to improve your email deliverability is to personalize your emails. This means adding the recipient’s name or other information in the email so that it feels like it was written just for them.
You can personalize your emails in a number of ways:
Add the recipient’s name in the subject line or in the body of the email
Mention something you have in common with the recipient
Refer to something they recently did, such as subscribing to your blog
Personalized emails have been shown to improve click-through rates, so it’s worth doing.
9) Monitor Sender Reputation
Sender reputation is a measure of how likely your emails are to be marked as spam. The higher your sender reputation, the more likely your emails are going to be delivered to the inbox.
Several factors go into this reputation, but two of the most important ones are deliverability and engagement.
Delivery is a measure of how often your emails are actually delivered to the inbox. If you’re consistently having emails marked as spam, your delivery will suffer.
Engagement is a measure of how often people interact with your emails. If people open and click through your emails, it shows that they’re interested in what you have to say. This helps to improve your sender reputation.
10) Avoid Spammy Keywords and Phrases
There are certain words and phrases that are likely to trigger spam filters. So it’s important to avoid them if you want to improve your email deliverability.
Some of the most common spammy keywords include:
- 100% free
- act now
- click here
- congratulations
- dear friend
- guarantee
- limited time
11) Make your Email Sign Up Form Stand Out
Your email sign-up form is the key to growing your email list. If people can’t find it or if it’s not eye-catching, you’re not going to get many sign-ups.
Here are a few tips for making your email sign up form stand out:
Add it to your website’s sidebar, footer, or in-line content: This is a great way to make sure website visitors see it.
Make the form short and sweet: The shorter the form, the more likely people are to fill it out. So just ask for the essentials, such as name and email address.
Include a call-to-action: Tell people what they need to do when they see your form. For example, “sign up now to get our latest blog posts.”
12) Send a Welcome Email immediately
Email service providers may ban you if you have too many emails that get marked as spam. Spam traps are email addresses that exist for the sole purpose of catching people who send spam.
To avoid getting banned, it’s important to send a welcome email immediately after someone signs up for your mailing list. This helps to confirm that their email address is valid and that they actually want to receive emails from you.
Your welcome email doesn’t have to be anything fancy. Just introduce yourself and let them know what they can expect from your emails.
This email marketing process can help to improve your deliverability and avoid any potential problems down the road.
13) Test Your Emails Before You Send Them
It’s always a good idea to test your emails before you send them. This way, you can be sure that they’re going to look good in all types of email clients and on all devices.
14) Keep an Eye on Your Email Analytics
It’s important to keep an eye on your email analytics so you can see how your emails are performing. This information can give you insight into what’s working and what’s not.
15) Merge Duplicate contents
If you have duplicate contacts in your email list, it can cause a lot of problems. For one, it can make your email list look bad. It can also cause deliverability issues and even get you banned from your email service provider. Calendar time to spend on your list to keep it up to date.
Email List Management Tools
There are a number of different tools that can help you with email list management. Here are a few of the most popular ones:
Mailerlite: Mailerlite is a great option for bloggers who are just starting out with email list management, and for those with large lists to add to an email campaign. It’s easy to use and it has a lot of features that more experienced bloggers will appreciate, such as automated welcome emails and RSS-to-email campaigns.
Keap: Keap is a powerful email database that can help you save time and energy when it comes to managing your email list. With Keap, you can easily add new subscribers to your list, segment your list into groups, and send targeted emails to each group.
Convertkit: ConvertKit is a powerful email list management tool that makes it easy to segment and target your subscribers. With ConvertKit, you can easily create opt-in forms and landing pages to grow your email list. You can also create automated email sequences and deliver targeted content to your subscribers based on their interests.
Sendinblue: One great thing about Sendinblue is its automation workflows. With this feature, you can automate your email marketing campaigns so that they go out without any intervention on your part. This is perfect for those times when you know you won’t have time to manually send out emails (for example, if you’re going on vacation).
Constant Contact: Constant Contact is another good choice for bloggers who want an affordable option with a lot of features. Constant Contact includes some great automation features, such as the ability to segment your subscribers based on their interests.
AWeber: One of the things that set Aweber apart from other providers is its deliverability; Aweber boasts a 99% deliverability rate, which means that your messages are more likely to reach your subscribers’ inboxes.
GetResponse: GetResponse is an email list management platform that offers a wide range of features. Some of the most notable features include autoresponders, landing pages, and automation. With GetResponse, you can easily add opt-in forms to your website and manage your subscribers with ease.
