Email List Cleaning: End Up On Santa’s Nice List, Not His Naughty List

If we take a trip down memory lane (some of our lanes might be longer than others ?), we might remember a parent telling us if we didn’t tidy our bedroom or help clean the dishes we’d end up on Santa’s naughty list and only find a lump of coal in our stocking. Let’s face it, none of us wanted to end up on the naughty list. We wanted to be on the nice list so we could stuff our faces with chocolate on Christmas Day morning or play with that toy we’d been whining on about in the run-up to the holiday season.

As email marketers, we know if we don’t clean our email contact lists we could find ourselves on the naughty list (or as it’s more formally known, an ISP Blacklist…). So, what do we do to avoid this predicament? You’ve guessed it. Follow our top tips to get onto Santa’s Nice List (and make sure your holiday emails land safely in the inbox).

Get your list in order

Chances are the holiday season is one of the most lucrative times of the year for you. So, don’t let all your hard work go to waste. You want your subscribers to engage with your content in the inbox and not for it to land in the junk folder. Removing inactive, unengaged contacts from your list is just as important as growing your email contact list with new and captivated subscribers.

It’s important to remove unsubscribed contacts, and hard bounces from your contact lists to optimize the performance of your email campaigns and give them the best chance of making it to the inbox (and not the spam folder). But, what else can you do to optimize your email contact list? Well, I’m glad you asked.

You could also segment your list based on the engagement of your contacts. Target the ones that have not opened your emails in the past 3 to 6 months. Send them a ‘we miss you’ reactivation email, and if they don’t engage in that, remove them from your contact list until after the holiday season. Let’s face it, if they haven’t engaged with you in the last 6 months the message is pretty clear, they’ve lost interest in your offering. You can always try to capture their attention again once the holiday season is over.

Ramp-up to full capacity

Along with cleaning your list, it’s important not to increase your sending frequency and volumes too quickly. You may think that your list is performing better than ever, so you’re exempt from the normal rules of emailing, but sadly that’s not true. ISPs often become very suspicious if you go from emailing your list once a week to daily and have huge spikes in your sending volume. We know it’s tempting to send more emails to get a higher ROI, and you can, you just need to warm the ISPs up to the idea first. You might end up looking suspiciously like a spammer if you send significantly higher volumes in a short time period, so take your time, and slowly increase sending over a few weeks.

Want to know more about deliverability best practices? Download our guide now!

Wrapping up

So now you finally know, the secret to getting onto Santa’s nice list is cleaning your email list and ramping-up your sending gradually… not cleaning your room. At Mailjet we recommend you only target subscribers who have engaged with your emails in the last 6 months. We know it’s tempting to reach back further into your email contact lists to maximize potential profit opportunities, but make sure you do it safely. Focus on your most active subscribers first, increasing the size of your list and sending volume slowly. That way, your efforts won’t go to waste and you’ll avoid your emails being blocked.

Do you need some inspiration to create beautiful Holiday email campaigns that not only will end up in the inbox, but also that your subscribers will definitely open? Download Mailjet’s Ultimate Guide To Holiday Emailing and discover great tips, from creating jaw-dropping designs, to crafting original content and working with our unique checklist.

Have you cleaned your contact list and seen great results? We’d love to hear your experiences. Tweet us @Mailjet using the #iamonthenicelist.