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Acquisition
and Attrition
How do you manage your e-mail list?
"While numbers vary greatly across industries, on average lists are
growing by 5.2% per month. With an average attrition rate of about 2%
per month, that leaves an aggregate growth of about 3.2% per month, or
40% per year."
-Ad:Tech interview with
Stefan Tornquist at MarketingSherpa.com
How many of your
customer e-mail addresses have changed recently? And how many of your
prospects are routinely blocking your mail? Are you satisfied with the
net growth rate of your customer/prospect database?
The truth is, the size and validity of your
e-mail list ultimately affects the success of all e-mail messages you
send.
For Example:
Behind the scenes of e-mail delivery, your e-mail address as an
identifiable sending source is monitored by the various Internet
Service Providers. ISP's -- such as AOL, Yahoo and G-Mail as well as
internal servers providing e-mail hosting for businesses -- are capable
of detecting how many e-mails you send at a time and how many of those
are actually bouncing back to you.
Other than complaints registered against your e-mail address, quantities
sent and quantities bounced are factors used to determine how valid you
are as a sender. Too many bounced e-mails, and the receiving e-mail
provider will log your e-mail address as a possible source of spam and
thereafter may not allow your mail into its system.
And the circle begins, because blocked e-mail is as I mentioned a
factor in determining how valid you are as a sender.
Adding good e-mail addresses and tracking bad e-mail addresses,
bounce-backs and actual complaints are imperative steps to take for
maintaining your reputation within the world of e-mail communication.
STRATEGIES:
Here are three "must-do" action steps to
maintaining a clean permission-based e-mail list:
- SET RULES for e-mail acquisition.
As you add new prospects and customers to your database, be sure that
you collect these e-mail addresses with the permission of those new
subscribers. Upon acquiring their addresses, inform subscribers of your
sending e-mail address and ask them to add you to their Address Book to
insure delivery.
- REMOVE bad addresses.
Initiate a system for monitoring the e-mail addresses that are returned
to you as undeliverable. A standard rule of measure is to avoid
exceeding 20% bounce-back or undeliverable ratio.
- INVOLVE yourself.
The more you manage and control the e-mail acquisition and delivery
processes, the more likely you will see a positive ROI.
Improve your acquisition processes and monitor your attrition rate
closely in order to maximize results in your e-mail marketing. Take the
right steps, and permission-based e-mail proves to be an economical,
accountable and effective marketing and retention tool.
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