Email marketing has always been a very influential platform. Lately, marketers have become more creative in using email marketing for uplifting the brand. It is no more only a promotional platform, rather emails are used to build a strong brand, customer loyalty, and content marketing. Retail site Goop, for example, covers a range of stories on health, lifestyle, food, etc. Goop is able to synergies audience interests with informative content pieces and connects them with relevant products. Such content pieces are circulated in the form of a newsletter which in turn promote sales. Content mapping strategy has worked extremely well for Goop.
Another amazing example is that of Amazon. This retail giant uses the power of recommendation to generate higher sales. The recommendation engine of Amazon has helped them to come up with an amazing email marketing strategy. The retail giant studies the browsing history, purchase history and other details of the users to come up with a list of product recommendations. Such a form of creative email marketing strategy is exceptionally helpful in business growth and adds value to the brand since you are providing consideration to customer wants.
But all the above-discussed strategies are working only when the brands are able to reach the right user. High-quality data help the brands to enhance brand positioning, generate higher sales, cut down cost as well as create a good customer experience.
What makes the email database of poor quality?
The database quality is hampered basically due to 4 major reasons:
1. Channels used for data collection- Businesses uses multiple channels for data collection. On average 3-4 channels are used to collect data including lead forms, point of sale, etc. The research report shows that 15-40% of the data collected from POS have the worst quality. Even if 10% of the data so collected is invalid, it can do a lot of damage to a company that has data in millions.
2. Manual Error- Human error is another big reason that leads to poor database quality. Human error is unavoidable. Data shows that 60% of businesses accept that human error is the biggest roadblock for them especially when it comes to database collection. A small space or missing character will make a huge difference in the case of an email address. 20% of the email addresses collected manually are invalid as reported by most of the organizations.
3. Third-party Data- 24% of the companies buy third-party data for promotional campaigns. Such third-party data run a higher risk of invalid data. Without validation check when an email campaign is shot using such bulk databases, the probability of getting a high percentage of undeliverable is pretty good. In such cases, hard bounces and spam rates are huge which impacts your sender reputation. Not only will your campaign result gets hampered but it is also the brand image that is at stake. The email service providers or popularly known as ESPs block the domains which are marked as spam. When your email lands in spam folder, your brand does not come up well off.
4. Periodical decay- the time factor is also a reason leading to the decay of email databases over a period of time. Even if you have ensured that your database is authentic and valid, you have to run your database for a periodic validation check to ensure that you filter out the dead email ids. Around 2% of the emails in database degrades every month. Such decay results due to various reasons like the user changed job, abandoned old email or server blocking promotional mails and so on.
What should I expect from an Email Verifier or Email Validation tool?
Although some level of control can be maintained you cannot ensure that the complete database is clean. A certain percentage of spams are acceptable and are experienced across industries. The ESPs would blacklist a sender when the spam rate goes beyond the acceptable count. You should pay attention to the email campaign report. In case you notice a gradual increase in your bounce rate you should run your database through a validation check.
Email verifier addresses the following issues:
- Identifies invalid, junk and dead email ids from the data pool
- High bounce rates due to the invalid data count
- Email communication to a large percentage of invalid email ids lead to Poor Sender Reputation
- Your emails do not land in the inbox of the user
- Overall campaign performance is bad and does not fetch desired results
How to use an Email validation tool to ensure quality data collection?
1. API Integration- Email validation tools provide API integration facility. This helps in immediate email validations. Such API integrations are extremely useful when you are collecting leads via POS or Lead Forms. In both cases, if the user/ customer fills in a wrong or invalid email address, they can be immediately notified to key in a valid email address for further processing.
2. ESP Integration- Email service provider integrations can help you to validate your database instantaneously before taking an email campaign live. You can directly send the data uploaded in your ESP to the email verification tool to verify the data instantly. There is no hassle of downloading and re-uploading the verified data back to the ESP. You can directly export the verified data to your ESP and take campaign live using the same.
3. CRM Integration- Integration of CRM with Email verifier helps you to in formulating a well-structured email workflow without worrying about being the spam or bounce issues. Incorporation of email verifier inn such email workflow ensures data hygiene.
4. Third-party data Validation- The quality of the email addresses bought from a third party should always be checked before putting into use. Unverified data when used for promotional campaigns, will not give desired results. Moreover, you will expose yourself to various risks from poor sender reputation to domain blacklisting.
5. Periodic Validation- Engaging your customers is a smart way to do brand recall activity as well as it contributes towards easy conversions. Once in 3-4 months, you should run the database through a validation process to eliminate email ids which have decayed over the due course.
Email verifying tool can contribute in a crucial way towards the success of your email marketing initiatives. A tool like
Clearout processes the email addresses using
20 plus validation checks to ensure the email id belong to a real person.
Email marketing is an integral part of effective marketing communication and strategy. It is a very impactful platform that helps businesses to generate new revenue opportunities. Businesses attribute the platform for the effectiveness of marketing communication but solely strategy will not suffice. Data plays a very important role in the success of email marketing. A very well framed strategy also fails if the data used is of bad quality.
Author Bio:
Author Name: Supriya Sarkar
Supriya Sarkar is a digital marketing consultant with a digital experience of over 6 years. The dynamic characteristics of the marketing industry due to technological advancement has always kept her amazed. She likes to be a lifelong student observing the world with awe and continuous zest to learn. She has worked on portfolio companies helping them in various digital activities including email marketing, content marketing, social media marketing, performance, and growth marketing.
Linkedin:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/supriyasarkar2007/Quora:
https://www.quora.com/profile/Supriya-Sarkar-25
Ross is known as the Pambansang Blogger ng Pilipinas - An Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Professional by profession and a Social Media Evangelist by heart.
