Email Marketing Series – Part Two: Managing Your Database

DBG has been lucky enough to put together a three part series on Email Marketing for local magazine – in-Business. In this second installment, our Managing Director Daniel Wilson helps us to take a look at how to effectively manage your database to continue engagement with key clientele.

A business must successfully manage its email marketing database if it wants to retain customer engagement and continue to achieve a return on investment. One key tool is segmentation. You need to divide your target market into subsets to address the specific needs of each group,” he said. “It’s also important to pay attention to what happens after you send an email out too – you need to check the level of engagement – clicks, forwards, shares. Once you have this data, you need to delve into these figures to determine what people are reading – and what is not being read.” Daniel says it is important to recognise what topics or subjects are worth pursuing after capturing the attention of the audience. “Topics that aren’t receiving much interest should have much less of a focus,” he said.

Daniel says the next step is addressing email bounces – and the reasons why they have bounced. “A certain level of bounce is acceptable as often people’s inboxes are full or they have simply shut down that account,” he said. “However you do need to get in there and work out what the issue is with each of these. Quite often an email typed incorrectly – a simple typo – can be the reason why. If you notice after a couple of bounces that the email is still not working to an individual, it may be time to retire them from your list.”

Another step is to determine who out of your lists is considered to be “low activity”. “It all depends on how often you are sending email communication out,” Daniel says. “If you’re sending emails out once a fortnight and they only open once every three or four attempts, you might want to consider putting them on a separate list. This is not to say you don’t want to email these individuals again, you simply want to limit how much you email them.” Daniel says some individuals may be receiving emails but don’t open them. “It could be that they are no longer interesting in receiving your emails, but it could also be that you are going to their junk mail folder,” he says. “You may want to remind them that if they wish to receive your emails, they must add you to their contact list or address book.”

Daniel says managing a database takes work, but it is an important task. “You could be losing out on opportunities for engagement if you do not correctly manage your database,” he says. “Long-term email campaigns are dependent on well-maintained email databases so make sure you incorporate managing the database into your strategy.”