Your mother was right, good hygiene is important.
And as experienced mailers and marketers, we all know the value of a good list scrub, don’t we? As the economy shifts and squirms and budgets shrink in over-reaction, we’re tasked with transforming less into more. So what’s list hygiene got to do with your shrinking budget? A whole lot.
Many companies are afraid that shrinking their total customer list will result in lowered opportunity. However, the opposite is actually true. You’re far better off with an efficient, smaller customer list than a sloppy inefficient giant slosh of uncategorized, un-scrubbed names.
No one ever said maintaining the tidiness of your customer list is fun. It’s an ongoing everyday task that needs the cooperation of everyone from call center reps to outside sales to customer service, marketing and of course your in-house Web and/or database crews. Your list needs to be coded, updated and corrected on an ongoing basis. The payoff for all this hard work will be the power to micro-target, upsell, cross sell and institute a whole new world of sales initiatives. In a nutshell, you’re leaving money on the table if you’re not regularly maintaining your customer list.
Fourth quarter for many businesses is a make or break moment. That spreadsheet you agonized over may be predicting your anticipated ROI. But, has your spreadsheet met that giant box of nixies or huge pile of bounces that haven’t been deleted off your list yet? And while you’re making introductions, be sure to also introduce your fourth quarter plan to your non-responders, non-clickers, 3+ month lapsed and, oh yeah, those disgruntled win backs still on your list.
When it comes to budgets and wasted money, the problems you face from a perpetually non-responsive name on your list are as big as an undeliverable. Neither have winning odds of getting on the good side of the ROI column on your spreadsheet.
When it comes to any kind of undeliverable, do not mail, unsubscribe, etc, if it’s no good and it’s not going to make you money, get rid of it. This name is eating away at your campaign’s profits
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