The average ROI for email marketing is $40 for every $1 you spend. That’s a significant return on your investment, but only if you’re using the right email lists.
If your email open rate is low, you’re getting bounce-back emails, or you’re not getting the desired results, it’s time to update your targeted mailing lists.
Here are five signs that you should revamp your list, and how it benefits you as a business.
1. You Have Low Email Open Rates
Your email open rate refers to the percentage of recipients that open the message compared to your total number of subscribers. Generally, you want to aim for around a 10-25% open rate, depending on the type of business you have.
Keep in mind that the average open rate varies across industries, so if your open rate is only 15%, that could be perfectly normal. The key is to understand where you should be and whether you’re meeting those goals.
As a small or medium business, keeping an eye on this metric is vital if you want to make the most of your email marketing strategy. Another metric you must know is the number of bounce-back emails. These refer to messages that couldn’t be delivered due to an address issue or other error.
To calculate your email open rate, use the following formula:
Open Rate = Number of emails read / (Number of emails delivered – Number of bounced emails)
If your numbers are lower or they haven’t improved in a while, it could likely be due to outdated targeted mailing lists.
There are many reasons why emails can bounce back, for instance. Maybe your lead entered their contact information incorrectly or their inbox is full.
If the addresses in your email database appear to be active and your messages are getting through but remain unopened, there are likely other issues. Your emails could be getting flagged by spam filters or maybe you’re sending too many.
At this point, you should do two things. First, reevaluate your email marketing campaign and start doing A/B testing to see where you can improve. Second, clean up and update your mailing list so you’re reaching your target audience.
2. Your Email List Doesn’t Grow
Successful, healthy email lists will grow and provide continual results. So, a stunted email list can indicate a problem.
There are a few reasons why your list may have stagnated. You should be promoting your email list and letting new customers and clients know that if they subscribe, you can offer them valuable tips, coupons, sale updates, etc.
Speaking of value, make sure that you offer your subscribers relevant content. After all, why should they open your messages or take action when there isn’t a strong incentive to do so?
There are plenty of strategies to provide incentives and get your subscribers to open your marketing messages. For one, you should start personalizing messages to encourage your customers further down the sales funnel. More people tend to open emails tailored to their needs rather than ones sent out without much consideration.
As a business, you should also get into the habit of cleaning out and refreshing your email database with new addresses. You can find plenty of targeted email lists filtered by state on our website, so you know your messages are reaching the right people.
3. You’re Doing the Work Manually
Finding the right email list for your business doesn’t have to be hard. However, many businesses still do much of the work manually, which isn’t as efficient.
Seeking new subscribers for your email lists can take a long time if you try and do it yourself without the assistance of technology and email list providers. It can take weeks, months, or longer to see results.
You can streamline the process by automating much of the work. For example, automating your email marketing campaigns allows you to send bulk messages to targeted segments and get better results. You can also schedule your emails to go out at a certain time or after someone takes a specific action.
Working with an email list company gives you instant access to active mailing addresses within your industry, from real estate to healthcare and more.
4. Segmenting Your Emails Takes Forever
Segmenting your target audience is a crucial marketing tactic if you want to get better results. You should always aim to send your messages to a hyper-focused target group.
For instance, you can segment your email list based on location, interests, age, etc. The more you know about how your customers, clients, or patients will behave, the better you can tailor your marketing strategy.
Of course, coming up with different buyer personas and segmenting your emails without assistance can take forever. If this is the case, you may need to reinvigorate your email lists so you can collect more data. The more relevant and up-to-date your lists, the easier it becomes to adjust your strategies and automate the process.
5. Your Marketing Emails Aren’t Getting Results
If you’ve tried different strategies and your marketing emails still aren’t getting results, your list could be to blame.
Maybe your open rate and click-through rate are lower than you want or your list of email leads hasn’t improved in some time. Whatever the reason, you might just realize you’re not getting the results that you want.
Although email marketing can have a significant ROI, as we mentioned earlier, it’s not always a “set it and forget it” strategy. You need to constantly sort through your database to clean out old leads and grow your list to ensure success.
Improve Your Targeted Mailing Lists
Many companies find email marketing stressful or frustrating, but it doesn’t have to be. If any of these signs apply to you, then you can get back on track with an improved email database.
Here at The Email List Company, we make it easy with targeted mailing lists tailored to different industries. You can find thousands of addresses by category and state. Plus, we promise pre-delivery testing and highly relevant data.
Get started with our Consumer Conquest Marketing campaigns.
