With consumers and businesses alike relying on emails for information and as a primary communication channel, it’s no surprise that email marketing is a high priority for businesses of all types and sizes.
Despite the creation of wide-ranging and comprehensive email strategies, very few companies include email validation as a tool in their campaign toolbox. Abandoned and inaccurate email accounts are slowly clogging up your contact lists. This results in wasting time and money as you send messages that are doomed to bounce back, ultimately running your sending reputation. Without this essential tool, even an expertly crafted email marketing campaign can fall flat.
With all this in mind, it’s no wonder that 83 percent of B2B companies used e-newsletters as part of their content marketing program, according to Imaginepub.com. But what happens when people change their emails or leave their jobs?
A poorly maintained list of questionable quality can quickly accumulate email accounts that are abandoned by their owners. Also, many companies rely on collecting email addresses at the POS or from a mobile device. When entering authenticating information on a mobile, typos are made that are only discovered later, when marketing emails go undelivered.
Email verification, or email validation, is one of the best solutions to deal with the prevalence of inaccurate or abandoned email addresses. Email validation should be used to keep your contact list up-to-date with loyal subscribers or interested prospects for better email marketing results.
When you send an email campaign to thousands (or potentially millions as is the case with enterprise accounts) of email addresses, imagine how much a more accurate list will benefit your company’s marketing program.
Using an email validation process should include real-time verification of subscribers on your email list, both as they enter their email on your landing page, contact form, feedback and order pages, and in batch uploads with your existing contact list. It’s ideal for ensuring accuracy for both newly acquired and long-established email lists.
The biggest benefit of email validation, is the amount of money your company can save through condensed marketing expenses. Every email sent represents money spent, so each marketing message that travels to nonexistent or inaccurate email addresses equals money down the drain.
With a properly validated, and in-turn more accurate list, your marketing campaigns should report an overall higher return on investment (ROI) for your efforts. After all, your campaign marketing statistics will no longer come back with lower than expected scores. Hopefully you’ll begin to see potentially significant results from your emailing efforts, and those results can lead to more money directed toward future email marketing campaigns.
A validated email list will tell you which of your contacts are active users, who has used your company’s services or products in the past, among many other insights. This provides a way to further segment your email list and tailor marketing strategy accordingly. You can send separate campaigns to each group, incentivizing segmented members to return, or offering them updates connected to their use of your company’s services or recent purchases.
Aside from poor campaign statistics, an inaccurate email list won't provide actionable data insights that can offer a course for future engagement strategies. That information is extremely vital for your ROI, and cutting through the noise of multiple bounced emails.
While we all want to handle our personal email subscriptions properly and update our information when we need to, the reality is that marketing campaigns we’ve opted into often fall through the cracks. As such, your audience members won't always remember or take the time to report to you when their email addresses change.
If your bounce rate increases, your reputation as a trustworthy business will be on the line with your email providers. No one wants their brand or company to have "spammer" associated with it. Therefore, email validation can go a long way toward maintaining your status as a reputable brand with your Email Service Provider (ESP) like MailChimp or AWeber, Internet Service Provider (ISP) such as Comcast or AT&T, and your target audience.
