Posts Tagged ‘newsletters’

We are in the process at Time on Task of switching to 1 Shopping Cart for our newsletter and auto responder system.  That has meant checking into our list of subscribers and cleaning up the names and information to import to the new system.

I had been thinking that this is a task to do regularly with an email list – check your reports – especially after talking to a new client and discovering she had been using an automated newsletter system for a few years now and never once checked her bounce/delivered reports.  One quick call determined she had many errors, current clients on the bounce list and many old and out of date ones as well.  She also had no idea how many were getting opened every month and if anyone was clicking on the links in her articles. Keeping this list up to date is important for a few main reasons:

1. When you are paying a different fee with different subscriber levels -you will want to ensure that invalid emails are not going out every month – causing your numbers and thus your fees to be higher.
2. Knowing if there are entry errors on your list and that people who should be getting your emails are not.
3. You are investing time and money into creating your newsletter – what if not one soul was reading it? Would you change things around with your content, try something new or maybe even stop altogether and use your time/money elsewhere?

You would not know the answers to these questions if you are not checking your reports.

It is important to take a few minutes and review your bounce list each month and see if anything is out of place. Bring it up to date, fix the errors and get rid of the invalid emails. Sometimes you will come across emails you are uncertain what to do with.

Mickey.... one of my email Subscribers

Which brings me to the point of my post today… Mickey Mouse is on my Newsletter list. Yep – Mickey Mouse. The big-eared one himself… and I am sure it is him because of the email address – mmouse at a Disney domain name (I can’t publish full email addresses you know). An interesting dilemma…

I was going to delete him, but then realized his email was being delivered and opened – I checked my reports, again the importance of checking these reports comes out.

Curiouser and Curiouser…  I think for now I will leave Mickey alone and be happy I have such a celebrity on my list.

What would you do? and more importantly, do you regularly check your reports/list?

Technorati Tags: Business planning, efficient business, email marketing, newsletters, Organization

As I was doing my year-end office clean-up, I decided to add in a new aspect this year… unsubscribing to email lists.

I can hear you all now… worried it might be your list I am clicking on. Don’t panic! When people unsubscribe it is not always a bad thing.  People building an email or subscriber list should be aiming for quality along with quantity. You want subscribers who will read your emails and check out the information inside, not people who may click and open it but then hit delete, or readers who never take the time to read the contents. If I am a subscriber that never reads your newsletter, do I really bring you any value by being on your list?

Readers who unsubscribe help keep your list up-to-date with interested subscribers.  Notifications that someone has unsubscribed is not anything to panic about unless you see large numbers leaving – then you may want to take a second look at your email plans – how often you send emails, what the content is and any feedback you receive.

There are various reasons people will unsubscribe,  generally it happens  when they are no longer interested in the content or  receive emails too frequently.  Emarketer has a great article on reasons behind people unsubscribing.

So remember, it does not always mean panic, it could be a good thing and helps you clean up your list and have a list with more people in your target market as opposed to just being there for numbers.  As the reader, it also helps you keep your inbox filled with information you will use and read.   How often do you clean out your subscription list?

Technorati Tags: email list, newsletters, subscriptions