Updating Your Mailing List

Building a strong mailing list is a vitally important element of direct marketing, and requires a marketer to have a very pro-active approach if it is to succeed. One of the key elements of building the best mailing list is to never treat it like a job that is done. The best results in direct marketing will come when you keep your mailing list constantly updated, adding new contacts to it on a regular basis. A long mailing list with a lot of customers is a great thing to have, but is not as important as the mailing list being up to date.

How often you update your mailing list is really up to you, however considering the importance of regularity, it is worth scheduling it. It all depends on your turnover of customers and the frequency with which you want to send out marketing emails. Once a week is not a bad idea – it can be the last thing you do in a business week, or the first thing you do at the start of a new one. This aspect of regularity makes the updating of the mailing list a routine, and gives you the impetus you will need to keep it current. The longer it is current, the more valuable it is.

Updating a mailing list is not simply a matter of adding the new customers, of course. If, for example, it is an email list, you will find that there are email addresses that bounce back any mail sent to them. Now, this is not to say that you should immediately delete from your mailing list any email addresses that bounce back an email. In actual fact, there are a lot of reasons why an email might bounce back. It is not a sure sign that mail from your address has been blocked, or that the email address is no longer functioning. It could be bouncing back for another reason, so do not delete the address from your contacts immediately.

If you receive contact from a customer, or potential customer, who makes very clear that they are not willing to receive any more contact from you then it is time to delete their details from your mailing list. There is nothing to be gained by continually contacting people who have made it clear that they do not wish to hear from you. All that will happen is that you will harden their opposition to you.

A mailing list is only as good as it is up to date. The up-to-date mailing list will ensure that the right people are receiving your email – or their paper mail – and are getting back to you in order to make purchases or retain your services. Ensuring that you are contacting the right people, though challenging, will ensure that you have an ongoing strategy for customer retention which will keep your business ticking over. A constantly updated mailing list is a vital part of a company’s marketing strategy and is worth all the time that you put into it.