You want to send a monthly email to your prospects and customers. All you need an email list and elbow grease, right? Not so fast. You have to make sure that your emails will actually get to those inboxes and be read by actual people. Building a responsible email list is the first step to do so. Here’s how:
Build a List of Trust
In order for your emails to be read, recipients have to trust you. No one wants to have low open, click, and conversion rates – or worse – be labeled as spam. Do the important work when building a list. Basically, emails are conversations you want to have with your recipients — apply the same courtesies as you would sitting face-to-face. You would never force your opinions on anyone at inopportune times because it’s rude. Same goes for email. And it all starts with the opt-in process.
Three Types of Opt-in
- Single opt-in requires little effort; a subscriber submits his or her information and is added to the mailing list.
- Single opt-in with a welcome email provides more opportunity to begin a customer relationship and set boundaries.
- Double opt-in requires a subscriber to enter his or her information and then click on a link in a post-subscribe email to confirm the sign-up.
The Care and Feeding of Email Lists
A list is not something you can set and forget. It needs regular attention to be efficient and keep you in good standing with customers, ISP providers and spam laws. While list growth is a worthwhile objective, it shouldn’t be pursued at the expense of engagement. Ensure that list members have opted-in to receive communications from you – and that the communication you’re sending is relevant to them. Ask recipients to add your email address to their address book, contacts, or safe senders list.
Provide a link to unsubscribe from the email in every communication and on your website. Offer an option for viewers to establish their own preferences for the timing and content of emails. Remove hard bounces and unsubscribes from your list immediately. Establish a process to monitor soft bounces and consider removing them. Periodically scrub your list of members that haven’t engaged with your communications after a period of time, at least annually.
SendPress can guide you in developing an authentic list for your email campaigns and make sure that your emails are delivered to the in boxes you want to reach.
