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List Cleaning ideas?

Eep eep ya'll-

With the new Subscriber Engagement segment, we thought we'd do a big list cleaning project. Anyone do anything similar and have some tips for success?

I thought about sending a newsletter to one-star subscribers with a subject of something like "Click to Continue 's Newsletter" and link to their preferences for that list. Then a week later or so, delete everyone who remains a one-star subscriber. Should that work?

I know tracking opens is not 100% precise, and we could lose some subscribers who clicked (though a very small number).

What about this idea: Link to a _new_ list signup form, and when they click and submit that form, take the signups from that list and merge them into our main list. Problem is, they'd receive another confirmation email and welcome email.

Any other ideas? What other tools does Mailchimp provide that might help this? ConstantContact had a tool that subscribers just clicked one to confirm a newsletter. No idea how that back-end worked, but it was as easy as possible from the customer side (the important side).

Thanks for any thoughts!
Jason

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Permalink Reply by Jason Markantes on November 2, 2009 at 6:54pm: Oops, looks like 2-star subscribers would be on the chopping block, not 1-star. Here's the breakdown from Segmenting your email campaign based on subscriber engagement:
1 Star – negative rating, this person has unsubscribe and resubscribed, or soft bounced in the past
2 Star – no activity, never opened or clicked, most likely a new member
3 Star – this recipient has started opening or clicking your campaigns, limited activity
4 Star – this recipient has started opening or clicking your campaigns, a little more activity
5 Star – this recipient has started opening or clicking your campaigns, lotsa activity

Would also add condition Date Added is before Last Campaign.

Now, what should they click to stay active?
Thanks,
Jason; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Mark DiCristina on November 3, 2009 at 4:50pm: Hey Jason,
I just posted a tutorial about how you can do this in MailChimp: http://www.mailchimp.com/blog/how-to-reactivate-inactive-subscribers/

You're right on the money. You want to set "date added" and "member rating" conditions. Then add language that says something like "YES, I want to continue receiving the newsletter." and have it link to a page on your site. It doesn't matter what the link is--the fact that they're clicking is enough to boost them to a 3 star rating. But it would probably be best to send them somewhere that acknowledges that they've re-confirmed and thanks them.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Jason Markantes on November 3, 2009 at 5:04pm: Perfect! But to double check, just opening an email won't bump a 2-star to 3, they have to click? Want to make sure if they open it but don't click anything that they'll really be ready for removal.

I'll look into setting up a couple scheduled campaigns in the coming weeks. I'm thinking of doing these campaigns with a subject a/b test, and base the winner on clicks and not opens. Would that make sense?

Thanks Mark for the timely article!
Jason; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Mark DiCristina on November 4, 2009 at 12:04pm: Right, they need to click to be reactivated.

Yes, I think basing the test on clicks is a good idea, since that's the primary metric used in member rating.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Will Johnston on November 6, 2009 at 12:08am: Hey there, I'm new to e-mail newsletters, so I'm hoping I'm not hijacking this thread too much, but why is it so important to have a clean list? If people get e-mails and either delete them or don't open them, it doesn't seem like that would matter too much.

Thanks!
Will

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Permalink Reply by Mark DiCristina on November 9, 2009 at 9:59am: Hi Will,
Depending on the size of your list and the number of inactive subscribers on it, you may be spending extra money to send to people that aren't engaged. Plus, ISPs have started measuring the "spamminess" of senders based on the overall engagement of the list, or how actively the subscribers are opening and clicking. Here are a few articles on the subject:

http://www.mailchimp.com/blog/feedback-loops-being-replaced-by-enga...
http://www.mailchimp.com/blog/how-to-reactivate-inactive-subscribers/
http://www.returnpath.net/blog/2009/10/how-engagement-metrics-influ...; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Will Johnston on November 9, 2009 at 11:54am: Cool, thanks for the info!; ▶ Reply to This

List Cleaning ideas?

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