The Value of Clean Marketing Lists

Marketing lists are at the core of business communications. Most smaller companies and organizations usually keep them in Excel spreadsheet form simply because they find them easier to manage and manipulate, but more experienced marketeers will know the value of having a CRM!

If your business relies on email marketing, these lists are critical to your success as they contain vital lead/customer information such as name, company, email address, engagement status (active/in-active) and product/service interest.

In some jurisdictions, ensuring your marketing lists are up-to-date and accurate is essential for not only business success but also compliance. Failure to keep your lists clean can result in costly fines, legal action and even data protection violations. “Brands fined £200,000 for sending over 191 million unsolicited emails and 3.6 million text messages”

Keeping these lists clean and well maintained should be a priority for your marketing department. As a valued Click customer, we can help guide you through the process.

“These lists allow companies to reach out to the right audience with the right content – playing a crucial role in your marketing efforts” – Kevin Strain, Click’s Marketing Consultant and Marketing List Expert during the Ask the Expert: Segmentation vs Marketing Lists Webinar

Types of Marketing List 

There are primarily two types of marketing lists: Dynamic and Static. Both have their benefits and drawbacks, here is a quick overview:

Dynamic Lists

Lists that automatically update as contacts are added when they meet the list criteria.

Dynamic List Benefits: 

  • Automatically updates to add or remove users
  • Efficient in time and cost
  • Scalable

Dynamic Lists Drawbacks: 

  • Dependency of technology
  • Potential to overwhelm/over-target users
  • Risk of privacy concerns if not set up correctly

Static Lists

A point-in-time list, based on the criteria of the list when it is created

Static List Benefits: 

  • Complete control over the list
  • Messaging consistency
  • Easy to understand and manage

Static List Drawbacks: 

  • Takes a lot of time to create and manage
  • Compliance and deliverability risks
  • Limited adaptability to changing customer needs

How To Clean-up Your Marketing Lists 

There are four ways that organizations can clean-up their marketing lists:

Criteria-based Updates

This method is best used for dynamic lists which run the risk of becoming outdated quickly. Updating criteria to match new business products, strategies, and goals is a fantastic way of keeping your marketing lists fresh and clean. However, this only works well if the list is held in a CRM that can update automatically. Using a marketing automation tool such as Click will increase the effectiveness of these updates.

Manual Removal

This applies to both dynamic and static lists, where a user might no longer be classed as ‘active’, so they need to be removed from your lists. It’s important to remember not to be too overzealous when cleaning lists manually. You can keep contacts on a list but change them to inactive rather than remove them altogether if that suits your business processes better.

Importing

If you’re using a CRM and importing a marketing list, you can specify which fields are active for each import. Click users can choose ‘add to marketing list’ or ‘remove from marketing list’ depending on how they want to treat each contact.

One-on-one Updates

This is essential for managing static lists. If a contact has interacted with a business representative and voiced an interest (or lack of interest) in a specific product, then marketing departments must manually update marketing lists to ensure that the records are kept properly.

Conclusion.

Cleaning up and maintaining your marketing lists is an essential task. It improves overall business health and helps with more effective sales and marketing conversions. And of course, if you’re under GDPR legislation, it could be the only way avoid a costly fine!

Having lists that are full of engaged and active contacts means that your business can provide valuable journeys, messages and content. In turn these will help maximize productivity and efficiency, leading to a higher number of closed deals and an improved customer experience!

Ready to learn more about Marketing Lists? Watch our Ask the Experts Marketing List webinar on-demand here.

Need help cleaning up your Marketing Lists? Reach out to Click’s Marketing Services Team.