When it comes to running email marketing campaigns, it goes without saying that your contact list is the lifeblood of your entire campaign. Not only that will you need to continually add addresses, but you will also need to maintain the quality of those existing addresses. These factors will determine the how successful your ongoing campaigns will be.

It should come as no surprise that every email contact list will have their fair share of recipients who wont bother opening, clicking or even responding to your emails. The majority of these readers may not even take a moment to unsubscribe to your mailing list and simply delete your emails out of habit. It is these sorts of recipients who will in fact add cost to your email campaigns and simply result in reducing the statistics relating to your conversion rates.

The more time you can dedicate to maintaining your emailing list, the higher you will be able to keep the \’open rate\’. Industry statistics show that after a couple of months from when you first start your campaigns, the ratio of people who open your emails will drop to just under 50%. It\’s estimated that after a further 3 months the rate of opening will drop to under 40%. If your mailing list goes unmaintained for 2 years then a common consensus is that the open rate will drop down to just over 30%. This is a very good reason in itself as to why you need to keep on top of your mailing list and make sure that your contacts are up to date and fresh.

Whereas you may be tempted to delete subscribers who have been inactive for long periods of time you may find it more beneficial to separate them into a list of their own. This may sound a little counterintuitive, however the reasoning is straightforward. Once you have a separate list of \’inactives\’ you will be able to tailor make a campaign that will target these more docile recipients as a means to have them become more active subscribers again. You may find that all it takes is a little gentle persuasion before they become targetable customers once again.

You should be active in trying to sign more people up to your mailing list. If you have a website then you should create a clear call to action on the homepage of your site so visitors will be in no doubt how to sign up. It is well worth offering an incentive in return for their contact details. This could come in the form of a free giveaway or the promise of a discount on your products and services for mailing list subscribers.

It may be the case that you aren\’t that confident about running your own email marketing campaigns, in which case a simple internet search will help you to produce a list of email marketing companies who will be able to oversee the management of your entire campaign. This will leave you with the time to market your business through other channels.

Author Bio: Trevor Richards writes on behald of Extravision (www.extravision.com), a UK supplier of email marketing services.

Category: Advice
Keywords: email marketing, free email marketing, ecommerce, sales, business, internet marketing, emarketing