Once a marketer has successfully created his/her list and is making money from it, the next step is for them to constantly manage or clean their email list. Research indicates that an email list is reduced by about 25% each year. Smart email marketers actively help in the reduction of their lists.

Sounds strange, but in actuality it makes perfect sense for marketers to regularly review and purge their email lists. List cleaning can be done by using an email scrubbing software. Regularly cleaning your email list means that you are removing contacts that are irrelevant and that can harm the success of your email marketing campaign. List cleaning can also increase your reputation, increases your email open rate and reduce your send charges (if you are charges on a per-send basis).

Here are a few types of emails that must be cleaned in order to protect your email marketing campaign.

1.   Duplicated and Invalid Email Addresses

Make sure that you are constantly checking your email list to remove duplicated and invalid addresses. Additionally all email addresses must be checked to verify that it is a working, real email address. This can be done by using online email address verification services.

2.   Unsubscribers 

If someone unsunscribes from your email list, it simply means that they no longer wish to receive information from you. Once this happens remove them from your email list ASAP.

3.   People Who Didn’t Opt In

Remove anyone from your list that did not opt in to receive information from you in the first place. Having a list with people that didn’t opt in is usually a result of: list buying or renting, list scraping or acquiring a list from a scummy marketer. Doing this will improve your stats and improve your overall reputation as an honest marketer, which generally means more business.

4.   Old Email Contacts

If an email address is old then it is in your best interest to remove it from your list. This is because: (1) the recipient has abandoned the email address (2) is no longer interested in your products or services. Of course this doesn’t mean that you are supposed to delete all of your old email subscribers as some of these people might very well be loyal customers.

5.   Detached Email Recipients

If you notice that someone is no longer opening your emails or clicking on your links then they should be removed from your list immediately. The reason for this is obvious – they have lost interest in your products. However, do not completely throw out their email address as they can still provide you with valuable information. Instead place them your re-engagement campaign.

Conclusion

Although list cleaning might seem counter-productive to the untrained marketer; however, the smart marketer knows that a clean list is an income-generating list. Do not be afraid to clean your email list from time to time. also you can use list cleaning software to make the process easier.