Your subscribers are trying to tell you something: If you’re looking to achieve higher open rates and happy subscribers, then you need to focus who you’re delivering to, what you’re delivering, and how it’s received. Add the following to your list of email marketing best practices, and you’re sure to have a successful campaign…

Quantity is not always better than quality. Building an email list is important, but you also need to be sure to keep it clean. A “dirty” list (old email addresses) can negatively affect your campaigns performance. Clean your lists each year, but don’t just flat-out purge inactive users (see out tips below on how to deal with these subscribers). “List hygiene” reduces spam complaints and helps to keep you off the spam cop’s radar. One rule of thumb we use is, “if the subscriber isn’t willing to give you their name, then they are probably not worth keeping.” If you have their name, you can personalize the message, and it shows that the beginning of your dialog with them isn’t completely anonymous – which is where most spam complaints and inactive accounts come from.

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