GDPR introduced a new era of protections for consumer privacy and forever changed the way that businesses across Europe captured, processed, stored, and used personal data.
There was a lot of confusion amongst business owners and marketers in the run-up to the regulations being implemented in May 2018, with many people not knowing quite what to do to ensure compliance.
But despite the official support and guidance available, there are still a few commonly held myths around certain areas of personal data management and processing.
One of those myths is that it’s necessary to have a double opt-in GDPR process for email lists. This isn’t true. Double-opt in email lists is not a requirement of GDPR in the UK.
The only country where there is a compliance requirement for double-opt in newsletter subscriptions is Germany, where examples of case law (rather than GDPR legislation) have made it important for businesses to embrace double-opt in.
Some businesses such as Google have decided to err on the side of caution in a few other territories as well, and to receive their marketing and performance emails, Google Ads users need to double opt-in if they are located in Austria, Germany, Greece, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Norway.
So even though double opt-in GDPR is a myth, and not compulsory to ensure compliance with legislation, if you’re reaching international customers it’s still a good idea. And there are plenty of other reasons why your business might want to choose a double opt-in email subscription method for your lists.
What is double opt-in and why is it important?
Before we jump into why double opt-in can be so useful for the quality and effectiveness of your email lists, let’s first look at the weaknesses of the single opt-in method.
The challenges with single-opt in
When you have a single opt-in, people are added to your lists simply by supplying their email address and taking an action like checking a box. This single action is taken as consent to receive your marketing emails.
This sounds quick and easy, and it is. But it’s also prone to error and poor data quality.
Any spelling errors in email addresses means an incorrect contact is automatically added to your list.
Another example of a weakness of single opt-in is fake or erroneous emails - either from bots or malicious activity. There are a variety of scenarios where this could happen, but as an example, imagine you have friends or colleagues that thought it might be amusing to add your email address to an irrelevant list. A single-opt in process would have no way of verifying that you genuinely wanted to receive marketing emails.
How double opt-in overcome these challenges
With a double opt-in process for your email lists, after supplying their email address and consenting to receive your communications, subscribers need to take a second step of verifying their details before they are added to your list.
It’s typical for a verification email to be sent almost immediately after a user has opted in to deliver the best verification rates.
Moosend has a great article about what should go into a verification email, with a list of examples including this email from Tease Tea:
By adding this second ‘validation’ layer to your opt-in process, you’re taking steps to prevent incorrect and mistyped email addresses from making their way to your list. You’re also eliminating any fake or spoof email addresses from contacts who aren’t really that interested in your emails.
The benefits of using a double opt-in email list strategy
There is a lot of debate amongst email marketers about whether to choose a single opt-in or double opt-in email subscription process.
On the one hand, single opt-in can help you build your email lists more quickly. You won’t ‘lose’ genuine subscribers that forget to verify their email address. There are also arguments that it’s a faster process - you can email subscribers with a welcome message immediately without having to wait for verification. Another suggestion is that single opt-in is a better user experience with fewer hoops to jump through, and as long as you retain relevant records surrounding the opt-in, your business complies with GDPR email consent.
Advocates for double-opt in email lists would generally say that the quality of your email list is more important than its size. They would challenge the argument that having to receive and click a verification email can be frustrating for subscribers by saying if a subscriber is genuinely interested and wants to hear from you - they’ll appreciate the additional steps you’re taking to protect their time and their privacy.
But perhaps the most compelling benefits that support the use of double-opt in are surrounding email performance:
Fewer bounces
Having a high bounce rate can impact your sender reputation with ISPs. Using double opt-in to verify the accuracy of the email addresses in your list can help reduce the bounce rate of your email campaigns and improve your deliverability.
Fewer spam complaints
A double opt-in process also eliminates the risk of erroneous or fake email addresses being added to your list, which can in turn reduce the number of spam complaints. This can also help reduce the risk of any damage to your sender reputation and improve your deliverability.
Improved engagement rates
When subscribers have taken that extra step of verifying that they want to receive your emails, they are more likely to be engaged with your messages and be receptive to your content.
Improved analysis and reporting
If your email list has a high number of inaccurate or fake email addresses, it can massively skew the accuracy of your reporting and your understanding of how well your true subscribers are responding to your messages.
Embracing a double opt-in email list process can improve the quality of your analysis and reporting dramatically.
Reduced costs
If your email marketing solution is priced based on the number of subscribers you have in your list, you’ll still be paying for any addresses that bounce or go to an incorrect address from a single opt-in process.
By choosing double opt-in, you can have the peace of mind that you’re only paying for list members that have shown a genuine interest in receiving your messages.
Build trust with your subscribers
By showing your subscribers that you care about data accuracy, data privacy, and only sending them messages they are genuinely interested in, you can help to enhance your credibility and give them the reassurance that you’re not going to send them messages they don’t want.
It’s considered data protection ‘best practice’
If we take a step back from the ‘letter of the law’ and look more toward the spirit of the law, the entire purpose of GDPR was to provide individuals with greater rights and controls over their personal data and help establish better standards for the way that businesses collect, process and manage data.
So even though double opt-in isn’t compulsory under GDPR legislation, it is ‘best practice’ in the sense that it does improve the way that businesses collect and store personal data and gives individuals more control.
Double opt-in email lists help with global compliance
There are examples of case law in Germany that supports a legal requirement for businesses to practice double opt-in. Other countries that also favor double opt-in include Austria, Greece, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Norway. So if you’re running a multinational campaign, embracing double opt-in will help ensure your opt-in process is compliant across all territories.
A quick look at the downsides, and a middle-ground solution
This obviously wouldn’t be a balanced article without looking at the disadvantages of using double opt-in for your email lists.
Make no mistake about it - choosing a double opt-in newsletter subscription process will reduce the growth rate of your list.
It’s suggested that only 50-70% of subscribers actually click on the verification email of a double opt-in process.
It’s worth thinking about this carefully based on the specific needs of your business and your growth objectives, and debate whether you’d rather have 100 emails with potential for error, or 50-70 emails that you know are verified.
Setting up double opt-in can also be more complex to configure, which can pose challenges for smaller businesses without an in-house tech team, although a lot of modern ESPs are well set up to make the process easier than it used to be.
One middle-ground solution is to take a hybrid approach by creating two email lists from your double opt-in email subscription process.
The first list could be ‘verified emails’ - these are the subscribers that have verified their email address through a double-opt in process.
The second list could be ‘opted in but unverified’ where you have the GDPR email consent requirements you need, but not the double opt-in verification. You could carefully monitor this second list for activity, move engaged subscribers into ‘verified’, and make a call on whether you suppress or remove inactive addresses.
If you’re looking for a solution to help you manage multiple lists, an email list management software like Simplelists is something to consider.
What are the GDPR mailing list consent requirements?
We started this article by answering the question “Is double opt-in required by GDPR?” and confirming that double opt-in was not compulsory for GDPR compliance in the UK.
But what is compulsory for compliant GDPR email marketing, and what should you be doing?
We’ve put together a quick checklist of the points you’ll want to consider, although we’d recommend visiting the ICO for more comprehensive information and seeking your own legal guidance for the specific nature of your business.
Have a clear opt-in process
We’re not going to muddy any waters by talking about the other forms of lawful basis for contacting individuals via email (although if you’re interested in further reading, the ICO has a breakdown of the six lawful bases for data processing.)
For the purpose of this article and your compliant GDPR email marketing campaign, let’s assume that you are using ‘consent’ as your lawful basis for processing data.
To be compliant with GDPR, your consent process must be clear, unambiguous, and involve a “clear affirmative action” (otherwise known as an opt-in).
Pre-ticked boxes are a no-go area if you’re going to comply with GDPR email consent, as it doesn’t meet the criteria of being a clear affirmative action.
It’s also important to make sure that you don’t make opting into your email list a precondition of signing up to your service or other terms. It needs to be separate and “unambiguous”.
Keep valid records to demonstrate consent
Another thing that’s really important if you’re going to demonstrate compliance is to keep documented evidence of consent.
The ICO recommends keeping records of:
Who signed up to your email list (the email address)
When they signed up (timestamp)
How they signed up (which form, on which channel)
What you told them when they signed up (is clear and unambiguous)
Be clear about how your business uses personal data
Your business should also have a privacy policy on your website that outlines how personal data is used, how it is stored, and how long it is going to be kept. Not only will this help you be compliant with GDPR, but it can also help build trust with your customers.
Make it easy for users to unsubscribe
GDPR unsubscribe rules state that it needs to be easy for subscribers to withdraw their consent at any time. Every email message you send should have a clear link to either your email preference centre or an unsubscribe button to satisfy this requirement.
Support an individual’s ‘right to be forgotten’
It’s not enough just to offer subscribers the ability to unsubscribe from your email list. You also need to honor any individual’s “right to be forgotten” and erase all their data if they make such a request.
Your GDPR email compliance checklist
Here are a few points you may want to consider and include as a checklist to ensure that you’re compliant with GDPR when sending emails to your subscribers.
Part of the reason there was so much panic and confusion in the run-up to GDPR was that the fines and legal ramifications were significant if businesses were found to be non-compliant.
But managing your marketing in a GDPR compliant way is important if you’re going to avoid consequences.
We’ll quickly run through three of the main consequences if your business is found not to comply with the GDPR email compliance checklist.
Fines and legal issues
There are two levels of penalties for businesses in the UK if they are found to have breached GDPR.
The lower levels of penalties are fines of up to £8.7m or 2% of annual global turnover for breaching articles relating to children’s consent, processing that doesn’t require identification, and the general obligations of processors and controllers.
Higher fines of up to £17.5m or 4% of global annual turnover relate to breaches of data processing principles, the lawfulness of processing, conditions for consent, data transfers, and the rights of data subjects.
Termination of third-party services
With the potential financial penalties being so severe, many platforms and third-party services understandably insist that only compliant data and processing practices can be used with their solution.
If you’re found to be using their services in a non-compliant way and against terms and conditions, it’s possible that your access to important third-party tools could be revoked.
Loss of reputation
If you’re found to be in breach of GDPR, your reputation is also likely to be impacted along with your finances and ability to access certain third-party services.
Businesses that breach regulations are typically made an example of to encourage compliance from others, and websites like Enforcement Tracker keep tabs on all GDPR decisions to date.
Choosing the opt-in method that is right for your business
Double-opt in is not a legal requirement for compliance with GDPR in the UK.
As long as you have a clear method of collecting consent, and you keep valid records of consent - your choice of opt-in methodology should really depend on the requirements of your business.
That said, there are a lot of benefits to embracing the double opt-in process, including improvements to your email deliverability and engagement rates, more accurate reporting, and making sure you are globally compliant.
However you choose to build your email subscriber lists, Simplelists can help make your email marketing easy by managing and segmenting your contacts and delivering your email campaigns to subscribers.
If you’d like to experience the benefits of Simplelists for yourself, sign up for our one month free trial.
Despite the developments in social media platforms and project management tools over the last decade, email is still the king of business communications.
It’s estimated that 90% of businesses use email as their primary channel of internal communication. And according to stats from Oberlo, more than three-quarters of small businesses claim that email is their most successful marketing acquisition channel.
However, choosing the best email service for business and deciding on the right supporting list management tools can have a significant impact on your email success.
What is an email service provider?
In the most basic terms, an email service provider (or ESP for short) is a company that takes care of delivering your emails to their intended recipients.
Sounds simple, right?
It’s made a little more complicated by the fact that ‘email service provider’ is used as a bit of a catch-all term to describe different types of email services that have different purposes.
Some ESPs specialize in the delivery of everyday email communications, like emails to people within your business or day-to-day emails you have with clients or other contacts. They are designed to make it easy to send, receive and manage email in your personal inbox.
There are also ESPs that specialize in sending emails en-masse. These are sometimes referred to as marketing ESPs, and they are designed to make it easy to reach a wide audience with your email messages. These types of email services often have the functionality to help personalize content and commonly boast more advanced reporting to help marketers understand things like open rate, click-through rate, and the parts of their emails that their audience engages with the most.
Simplelists: A great enhancement to your everyday email services
Sometimes the email services that businesses use for their everyday communications can be limited in their capabilities.
They provide the interface and functionality that makes it easy to send and receive 1-1 emails, but what if you want to send emails to a large group of people without having to invest in a marketing ESP?
Or, what if you want to have collaborative group discussions via email, with an easy-to-search archive of contributions?
In our easy-to-use interface, you can set up unlimited mailing lists with large numbers of recipients. Each mailing list has its own unique list mailing address.
By sending a single email from your everyday email services to your chosen list mailing address, you can reach a wide number of recipients quickly and easily.
It’s like having the major benefit of a marketing ESP without the hefty price tag.
Additional functionality that comes with Simplelists is the ability to set up group email discussion lists, which encourages all recipients in a list to share information and collaborate.
The great news is that no matter which email services your business uses, Simplelists can work alongside it and enhance it.
You’re possibly thinking “What is the best email service for business?” This is a tough question as it all depends on the specific needs of your business. But to help you along the way, we’ve put together a list of the 7 most popular email providers with our customers.
Top 7 email services for business
1. Gmail / Google Workspace
Gmail is one of the most commonly used personal email services in the world with more than 1.8 billion users across the globe.
But it’s also gaining a reputation as perhaps the best email service for business.
Google Workspace is a cloud-based platform with a whole suite of tools for businesses of all sizes. By signing up to Workspace, you’re able to use Gmail with your own business address.
One of the main benefits of using Google Workspace for your email services is that it integrates easily with other Google apps such as Drive, Sheets, Docs, and Forms.
There’s also a wide range of different plans to suit the needs of all types of businesses. The starter plan offers 30GB of storage per user from only $6 per user, per month. For larger organizations that need more storage and more advanced security and functionality, the Business Plus plan starts from $18 per user, per month.
Integration with other Google apps such as Google Docs, Drive, and Calendar
Ample storage limits
Solid security features and controls
List of Cons:
For larger businesses, pricier than some other solutions in our list
Google app integrations are only useful if your business fully embraces Google Workspace
2. Outlook / Microsoft 365
Outlook has historically been one of the most popular email providers for businesses, but it’s facing stiff competition from some of the other solutions in this list.
One of the major plus points that Outlook has is its familiarity for business users. If you’ve been in business for any length of time, there’s a high chance that you’ve used Outlook for managing your emails at some point.
Great features such as a focused inbox and powerful tools to help organize your emails make Outlook a great choice for busy business professionals and supports its reputation as perhaps the best email service for business.
Outlook is also part of Microsoft 365, which means that it integrates and works nicely alongside other Microsoft products such as Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and OneDrive.
Similar to Google Workspace, Microsoft 365 has a variety of plans to suit the budgets of organizations of all sizes. Their basic account starts from $6 per user, per month, and rises to $22 per user, per month for businesses that need premium services and advanced security.
The interface is familiar for a lot of business users
Effective in-built calendar
Integrates with other Microsoft365 products
Great tools to help prioritize and organize emails
Intuitive attachment features
List of Cons:
Limited customization compared with Google Workspace
An annual commitment is required
Monthly costs are higher than other solutions on this list
3. ProtonMail
If security is important to your business, you might consider ProtonMail as one of the safest email providers on our list. Developed by MIT scientists and governed by Swiss privacy laws, one of the key benefits of this email service provider is that all messages are secured by end-to-end encryption.
ProtonMail has a supporting calendar and drive, and starts from as little as €6.49 per user, per month for their essentials plan, rising to €9.99 per user, per month for their premium offering.
For businesses looking for affordable and effective email services, Zoho is a solution to consider.
In addition to providing an effective and affordable email solution, Zoho Mail also has a free suite of tools designed to improve productivity which includes a calendar, contacts, tasks, notes, and bookmarks.
Zoho Mail has a lot of helpful features to secure its place in this list of the best email services for business. It assists in keeping on top of your email efforts, such as the ability to create folders, labels, and filter your emails. It’s also super easy to set up email templates and out-of-office autoresponders.
Zoho doesn’t have a monthly payment option, and you need to be billed annually - which might be off-putting to some businesses. But their prices are incredibly affordable, starting from only €0.90 per user/per month for their Mail Lite plan, and rising to €3 per user / per month for their premium workplace plan which includes a wide range of other tools to complement Zoho Mail.
Additional tools for managing notes, bookmarks, and contacts
Effective tools for organizing your emails
List of Cons:
No monthly contracts
Small storage limits on the lower-tier plan
5. iCloud Mail
If you’re part of the Apple ecosystem, you’ll probably already have your dedicated iCloud email account which provides free email services. It probably looks something like “name@icloud.com”.
By upgrading to an iCloud+ account, you can actually use iCloud Mail with a custom domain for your business, such as name@yourcompany.com.
iCloud Mail has a variety of benefits such as the ability to effectively organize and filter your email and also boasts an easy way to create email aliases for your main account.
It seamlessly integrates with macOS and iOS, which makes it one of the best email providers if your organization is already using Apple machines.
Not ideal for email services unless your business is invested in the Apple ecosystem
6. Icewarp
A lesser known, lesser used but worthy addition to our list of best email providers is Icewarp.
Icewarp positions itself as the best email service for a business looking for an affordable alternative to Google and Microsoft. It packs a full suite of tools for managing documents, team chats, video recordings, file management, and email.
The email functionality in Icewarp is simple but intuitive. Pricing starts from as little as $3.50 per user per month for their cloud-based solution, and $7.00 per month for their desktop application.
Affordable compared to Google and Microsoft solutions
Intuitive user interface
List of Cons:
Limited mailing list features
Unfamiliar for many business users
7. HubSpot
Okay - you caught us! This one is a bit of an outlier.
HubSpot is actually more of a marketing ESP, which is great if you’re going to be designing, personalizing, sending, and analyzing your marketing emails (it has an amazing drag-and-drop editor for creating marketing emails). But it isn’t an ‘everyday’ ESP per se.
However, if you’re already using HubSpot as your CRM, you might consider using their connected email solution.
It integrates with your existing email services and allows you to use an email service you’re familiar with, at the same time as keeping track of all the emails that colleagues across your business have sent a particular contact within your CRM.
And the best part? If you’re an existing HubSpot user - it’s completely free to get started, with additional functionality for a small fee.
Improve productivity and collaboration across your business
List of Cons:
Not really an everyday ESP!
Choosing the right email service provider for your business
There is a wide range of different email services that can help your business with your everyday email needs.
The list of best email providers in this article is by no means exhaustive - it’s just the solutions we know our clients have found success with.
It’s really tough to determine what email service is the best - It’s important to evaluate the pros and cons of each ESP and evaluate how they align with the needs of your business.
Whichever email services you choose for your daily business needs, you can rest assured that Simplelists will be able to enhance its functionality by reaching large numbers of recipients with one email and facilitating group email discussions.
If you’d like to see for yourself how easy Simplelists is to set up with your own ESP, sign up for our free one month trial.
You’ve got a business idea, product launch, or important news, and you’re bursting with enthusiasm, and want to share it with the world.
You need an email that’s engaging, professional-looking with great imagery and branding, and effective at getting people interested in what you’re selling or want to say.
An HTML email template is what you need. But how do you go about creating one?
Simplelists are here to help you create an HTML email template with ease by following a few simple steps.
What is an HTML email template?
An HTML email template is a pre-designed layout that you can use to create emails. They come in a range of different shapes and sizes, with different features and benefits. Some may be more suited to your needs than others, so it’s important to know what they are before you start using them.
An HTML email builder allows you to quickly build professional-looking emails without having any design skills whatsoever.
They’re also great if you want consistent branding across multiple campaigns or newsletters as they allow for customization options such as colors and logos.
If you’re looking for a simple and easy way to create professional-looking emails, then using an HTML email template is a great choice.
What is a Plain Text email format?
Plain text email is a simple, readable format for email messages, also known as “text only” and “no HTML”.
A Plain text email is stripped of any fancy formatting, such as colors or graphics, and just contains the bare bones of what you need to say. It’s simply an email format that can be read by any device or computer, regardless of the operating system.
Common uses for plain text emails are in sending transactional messages, such as purchase receipts or password resets. It’s a great option for people who don’t have any special requirements when it comes to sending an email.
Email Plain Text VS HTML: the Pros and Cons
There are two main types of email: plain text and HTML. Plain text emails are easier to read but don’t stand out as much. HTML emails can be more engaging, but they’re harder to read (especially on mobile devices).
An ideal solution would be to use both in your emails — but which one should you choose?
HTML emails allow you to include images, graphics, and video that showcase products, alongside design formatting (e.g., color, logo, placement) to grab readers’ attention on certain information — such as price or call-to-action (CTA) buttons.
Make your emails look professional
Maximize the use of design features to make your company’s brand image and identity prominent, including logos and banners. You can also use HTML emails to create a consistent look and feel across all your marketing campaigns.
Structure emails into easy-to-read sections
Through short and eye-catching sections, HTML can help you to structure emails in an easy-to-read way. Create text boxes, links, and CTA buttons that are placed in a logical order, which makes it easier for readers.
Offer some social media buttons
They can include buttons that allow recipients to share their email with their social networks, increasing the chances that people will see it. If being shared to be viewed on multiple devices, it’s important to use a responsive email template. This means that recipients will see your email regardless of where they read it or what device they use.
Create flexible email templates
HTML emails are more versatile and allow for a wider variety of designs than plain-text versions. The flexibility to create a responsive email template is one of the most important features of HTML emails, as it allows recipients to view and interact with your message no matter where they’re reading it.
Enable tracking and analytics
They also provide analytics for email campaigns, allowing you to see when emails were opened, links that were clicked on, and what percentage of subscribers went on to make a purchase, etc. This is valuable information to improve future campaigns and develop the best possible email strategy for your business.
More easily go to spam
Email providers use a variety of criteria to decide what emails are spam and which ones aren’t. Because HTML formatting can be difficult for email provider’s filters to digest, as a precautionary measure for their users, it can mistake your message as spam — even though you’ve done nothing wrong!
Plain Text Pros & Cons
Quickly loading and faster opening speed
Plain text emails have a smaller file size than HTML-based emails, so they load faster and are less likely to get stuck in spam filters. Buffering times are drastically reduced for plain text emails since there are not so many elements or graphics to load.
Less engaging and similar to a text message
The impact of plain text email is only reliant on the copy and is often used for transactional messages that require little thought or action from the recipient, like confirming an order or updating account information. Because of its lack of visual appeal, plain text tends not to be as engaging as HTML email templates would be with embedded features.
Limited analytics options
Email campaigns that rely on plain text may require self-reporting for tracking purposes. As a result, the only way to measure success is by how many recipients write back. Text-based email campaigns are great for sending out information. However, if you want to increase sales and maximize engagement, creating an HTML email template may be better.
Better for one-on-one emails
Plain text emails excel at writing sales letters and other types of informational copy. Their prose is efficient, informative, and well-suited to one-to-one communication.
Get sending to your list straight away with Simplelists
Building or managing an effective email list can be challenging, especially if you’re new to online marketing.
At Simplelists we’ve got a lot of great features to help make building your email list easier than ever before.
With an easy-to-use interface, you can create multiple lists for different audiences, with a direct sign-up form integrated into your website.
Why not try us for free, you can build and send to your email lists in just a few clicks.
When you’re crafting an email for your audience, you’ll probably spend a lot of time coming up with a compelling subject line to try and improve the open rate and avoid triggering spam filters.
You might also spend hours making sure that the content of your email is relevant to the target audience, contains appropriate imagery, and has a clear call to action.
But how much time do you spend reviewing your email footer?
The answer for many organizations is ‘not much time at all’.
Email footer design is often overlooked during the email development process, but it shouldn’t be. Email footers can be just as important as other areas of your email, and failing to include certain information in your footer can mean you don’t comply with legislation.
In this article, we’re going to look at why email footers are so important, the content you should include in your email footer, and share some best practice tips for email footer design to help you get more out of your emails.
Why is email footer design an essential part of an email?
An email footer is an essential part of your email as it provides information to ensure your organization complies with legal requirements, enhances the memorability of your email, and encourages your recipients to engage with you further.
There’s an interesting concept called the ‘serial position effect’ which suggests that people typically have a better memory of the things they see first and last, with content in the middle being less memorable.
With the footer of your email being the last thing your audience sees before they close your message, it’s important that it leaves them with a positive lasting impression of your organization and encourages them to explore your brand further through the use of a clear call to action or signposts to further content.
Your email footer is also where you should include certain information that is required by law.
In the UK, the Companies Act 2006 made it necessary for the email footer of any limited company or partnership to include:
Company name
Company registration number and country of registration
The details of your registered office address
In the US, the CAN-SPAM legislation also requires that an email footer includes reference to a physical address where people can reach you.
Legislation across the US and Europe also requires you to make it easy for your recipients to unsubscribe from your emails. So having a clear and simple unsubscribe link in your email footer is also essential.
Be mindful that legal requirements vary from country to country, so it’s important to seek the right legal advice based on the location of your business and your audience.
What should an email footer include?
Your organization is unique, and your email footer is going to reflect that.
There are certain things that you need to include in your footer to be compliant with legislation.
But outside of this, the things you choose to include in your email footer design depend on your objectives and the impression you want to leave on your audience.
Your logo
Your email footer can help reinforce your brand identity to your email subscribers. So it’s often recommended to include your logo, brand fonts, and brand color scheme in your email footer design. This helps your recipients to recognize your brand and make the connection between your website and other marketing materials.
Social media links
Many email footer designs include links to an organization’s social media profiles. This can be a great way to direct your email subscribers to your other online channels, so you can build stronger relationships and promote your products or services across multiple platforms.
Links to relevant resources
You might also consider including links to relevant blog posts, white papers, or case studies in your email footer if your objective is to establish expertise and authority with your recipients.
Call-to-action
If you want your email to be more conversion-focused, you might consider a clear call-to-action in your email footer design that encourages your audience to take a specific action such as signing up for an event, booking a consultation, or making a purchase. If you’re linking through to your website from your CTA, make sure your landing page is well-optimized.
Testimonials or reviews
If you want to build trust and credibility with your audience, another thing you might include in your email footer is a recent testimonial or review. This can help provide social proof to your audience, and demonstrate the real-world benefit of your organization, service, or product.
Awards or accreditations
Including the logos of any awards or accreditations your organization has won can also be a good way to establish trust and credibility with your audience.
Important news or upcoming releases
Another thing you might consider including in your email footer is the headline of some recent news about your organization, that links through to the full article. Alternatively, you might include a teaser for upcoming products or services to raise awareness amongst your subscribers.
A link to your referral program
If you have a referral program for your business, your email footer template can also be a good place to remind your subscribers of the benefits of referring their colleagues, friends, and family.
A link to your email preference center
The key to successful email marketing is relevancy. An email preference center allows your subscribers to tell you the type of email content they are interested in, and their preferred frequency for receiving emails. If you have an email preference center, including a link to it in your email footer is another good idea.
Branding is important in your email footer design
You have a lot of options for what you might choose to include in your email footer template.
But it’s important to remember that less is often more.
Try to keep your email footer clean, clear and concise, and resist the temptation to include too much information. Decide on what is the most important information for your organization to communicate, and focus on delivering that in the most effective way possible.
Many organizations choose to include their logo in their email footer template. This can help create a visual connection between the email and your brand and can increase brand recognition and recall.
It’s also important to make sure your email footer design aligns with the branding and color scheme of your website and other marketing materials. This can help reinforce your branding and helps create a cohesive experience for users across all your different marketing channels.
Reminder - don’t forget the legal requirements!
It’s easy to get caught up with creative ideas for what you might include in your email footer design, and how it can help you build a stronger connection with your audience.
But don’t forget about the important legal information that needs to be in there.
Failing to include the relevant information in your email footer can result in your organization being issued a fine of up to £1000.
As a quick recap, the information that any limited company or limited liability partnership needs to include in their email footer includes:
Company name
Company registration number and country of registration
The details of your registered office address
You also need to include a clear unsubscribe button that allows your recipients to easily opt-out of receiving further emails from you.
Other legal information you might want to include in your email footer is a link to your terms and conditions. This can be useful for outlining the terms of service for your products or services.
You might also consider including a link to your privacy policy, outlining how you collect, use, and store your customer data.
How to create an email footer
Your email footer design is a really important part of your marketing emails.
It’s important that you design and build your footer in a way that looks professional, is visually engaging for your audience, and delivers maximum impact.
If you have access to an in-house designer or have freelance design support, they will be able to help you communicate the messages you want to convey in a visually appealing way.
If it’s something you feel like you want to tackle yourself, there are a number of pre-existing email footer templates on affordable design solutions like Canva.
If you’re looking for some inspiration for your email footer design, the following articles have some good examples:
Remember, for email footer best practice it’s important to keep it simple and easy to read. Try to avoid cluttering your email footer with too much information, and stick to a clean and simple design that is consistent with your branding.
Once you have your footer designed, you’ll need someone to create it as part of your HTML email template.
The person who usually produces your emails should be able to translate your design into a working email footer that is ready to be included as part of your next email campaign.
Make sure your email footer delivers a strong ending to your email
If you’ve followed this article to the end, you’ll understand why your email footer is an important part of your email marketing strategy that shouldn’t be overlooked.
Having an effective email footer design can help you comply with legal requirements, leave a lasting impression on your audience, and encourage them to engage with your brand further.
Ready to put these tips into practice? Sign up for a one-month free trial of Simplelists.
At Simplelists, we make email marketing easy and have full support for HTML emails. Register for our free trial, and see how simple it can be to reach your audience with emails that include your brand-new email footer.
Listserv management is a crucial part of every business.
It can help you build a strong subscriber base, increase sales, and engage with your customers.
But how do you get started?
In this article, you’ll learn the benefits of using email list management software and how Simplelists will help you manage your listservs effectively from one interface.
What is a Listserv used for?
Listservs are used for a variety of purposes, such as
keeping your customers informed of new products or services,
sending out newsletters or updates from your organization,
sharing information with other businesses in your field,
and more
This makes listserv software a great tool for email marketing because it allows you to send out one message to your subscribers and reach them all at once.
This can be much more efficient than sending out separate emails to each recipient individually.
You can segment and grow an active and engaged list of subscribers using a listserv management system.
In the next section, we’ll cover some of the things you must take into consideration when using email list management to ensure you get maximum benefits from your investment.
3 Benefits of a Mailing List Manager
An invaluable tool for your business, a mailing list manager organizes your mailing list into a database so that you can easily send out emails to your subscribers at any time.
With the correct mailing list manager you’ll want to be able to:
Increase Traffic and Sales
Lessen Your Email Marketing Costs
Increase Customer Retention
Available features in selected listserv software allow you to track your emails for performance, customize sent emails, automate your communication and avoid spam complaints.
But what does that mean for you?
We know they’re a great way to engage with customers, but they can also be a source of frustration for email marketers who don’t have the right tools.
Listserv management offers many benefits for businesses of all sizes. Here are three ways it can help:
Keeping your email list clean
The internet is full of spam, and it’s hard to imagine a time when it wasn’t.
As a result, many people have become understandably wary of unsolicited emails and may even consider them to be the work of evil spammers.
To be successful, you need a clean list of subscribers who are actually interested in your products or services.
A clean email list is one that has no duplicates, no invalid addresses, and no non-responsive subscribers.
Email lists are like a garden — if you don’t keep them maintained, they’ll become overgrown and unruly. But if you take care of them and nurture them, they’ll be beautiful and bountiful.
An email list manager helps ensure your emails reach their intended recipients and don’t end up in the junk folder.
It also helps you avoid ending up with a large number of unclaimed or dead email addresses on your list that can cause issues for both your reputation and deliverability rates.
Creating an engaged list
Creating an engaged email list is a goal for any business and the holy grail of boosting your ROI!
But it’s not always easy to achieve.
So, having the right listserv software is important to help you gain a number of engaged subscribers.
This means you can build relationships, send targeted messages, and create stronger brand awareness.
A better understanding of your audience will help you unlock valuable insights into what they want and how they like being communicated with.
To keep your email list engaged and growing, we suggest your email campaigns or updates are:
In short, your email bounce rate is when an email doesn’t reach your intended recipient, also known as email delivery failure.
An email bouncing doesn’t sound too bad, right?
Unfortunately, email delivery failures can have a negative effect on your campaigns, ROI, plus domain and IP reputation.
This is why it’s important to choose a valuable listserv software that has:
Virus protection
Domain authentication
Spam filters and checkers
Email delivery reports
Auto bounce handling
This allows you to maintain good email list hygiene and preserve your sender reputation, whilst having insights into what is successfully delivered, not delivered and what content is engaged with.
So what email list management software can give you all this and more?
Simplelists as a Powerful Mailing List Manager: How it Works
As we’ve mentioned, Simplelists is a listserv management tool that allows you to manage your mailing lists with ease.
Offering a simple interface and a wide range of features, you’ll be sure to find a solution that meets all of your needs. Easy list creation with Simplelists can be from scratch or from an existing CSV file. Allowing you to effortlessly create, edit, manage and delete email lists.
But that’s not all!
Here is an overview of some of Simplelists key features:
Quick and easy interface
Some listserv software interfaces can be complicated, requiring special knowledge or skill and leaving even experienced users lost!
The interface needs to be as simple as possible!
Simplelists interface is extremely user-friendly. Designed to be clear, easy to navigate very easy to use.
You can create and manage your email lists with just a few clicks of your mouse.
And the best bit is, you don’t need any software downloads. All operations are performed within our mailing list manager online platform.
This also makes it possible for you to securely access Simplelists from any computer, as long as you have an internet connection.
Manage and review your subscribers’ list
Simplelists products can help you manage and review your subscribers list so that you don’t waste time sending emails to invalid addresses, or worse — spamming people who don’t want to receive any mail from you!
Simplelists’ robust email list management tools allow you to view statistics on each subscriber’s engagement with your emails; filter out inactive users or remove duplicate entries; remove spam addresses; and more.
You can set post permissions for different levels of access: from those who can post and edit posts to those who can only read them.
You can also restrict access by category or topic — for example, if you have multiple lists for different products or services, you can give each one its own categories and topics to prevent mixing up posts.
You can also use it to merge multiple lists into one unique list of contacts that are eligible to receive your emails (or newsletters).
In addition, all Simplelists products come with an advanced duplicate checker that will find any duplicates in your mailing lists and remove them automatically. This helps ensure that your recipients receive only one copy of any given message.
Moderate listserv emails
List moderation is a useful tool for having instant and automatic control over your email lists and discussion groups.
Simplelists email list manager allows you to set subscription parameters, plus posting restrictions to ensure that you’re aware of what is being sent.
You can choose to hold messages for approval by your recipient before sending them for delivery.
This allows you to review each message before sending it out into the world so that you can make sure it meets your personal standards as well as any requirements from your company or organization.
Under Simplelists list settings you can do the following:
No moderation - all messages will be distributed to your list regardless of who sent them.
Moderate all messages - all messages will be held for approval regardless.
Allow specific members - in a Single List select either the whole list or detail specific email addresses. In a Multiple List, you also have the option to define lists whose members can post.
Max message size - this value defines the maximum message size in kilobytes before a message is held for approval.
Emails will be held for review by your selected administrators before being sent out. If you choose anything to be held for moderation, then Simplelists will send an email notification to let you know when a new message has been created so that it can be reviewed in a timely manner.
Archive your email list to a website
Whether you’re a small business or a large corporation, you need to keep your email marketing efforts organized and up-to-date.
It’s best to do this by archiving all of your messages in one place so that you know exactly what is being sent out at any given time.
The main benefit of archiving email is it helps you view the history of your business over time and gives you the ability to search.
Simplelists provides searchable web archives at no extra cost. Making it easier for you to find information and giving a more complete picture of what’s going on with your audience.
Archive pages can be password protected, with the ability to hide email addresses, and archive web pages can be customised.
Notify bounce emails
Bounced emails can affect your sender reputation and deliverability, which ultimately leads to poor performance of your email campaign.
Using Simplelists email list manager, bounced emails are processed automatically and email deliverability gains higher performance.
Simplelists automatically handles bounced emails and ensures that non-responsive email addresses are removed from your list. Listing them in the "Bounces" menu once you’re logged into your account.
To maintain a high delivery rate to ISPs and make it easier for you to manage your list, we delete any members from your list if either of the following occurs in any given month:
Have a bounce rate higher than 75%
Have more than a total of 30 bounces
The List Manager will be notified of any members that have been deleted and will receive a warning towards the end of each month if any accounts are over their bounce rate threshold (75%).
The same Bounces page can also be used to configure accounts to send daily messages detailing all bounces: it is then possible to use this information to create strategies for reducing email bounce rates in future campaigns.
Email list management is a key aspect of any business that interacts with customers online.
A well-managed email list can help you provide better services, improve your reputation, increase customer satisfaction and of course improve your ROI!
Simplelists here to help you grow your business and achieve these goals.
By providing powerful and easy-to-use email list management software, you can create and track email lists, newsletters and campaigns with ease.
Let’s take a trip down memory lane, and revisit the internet as it was in 2001.
Most of us were using Internet Explorer to browse the web.
Countless hours were spent chatting with friends on MSN Messenger.
If you wanted to search for something you were likely to go and Ask Jeeves.
And if you wanted to join an online discussion group with people who held similar interests, you joined Yahoo Groups.
A lot has changed in the last 22 years.
What happened to Yahoo Groups?
Yahoo Groups launched on 30th January 2001.
It combined the technology from a business called egroups.com which Yahoo! had recently acquired, with the active communities of Yahoo! Clubs.
It was an immediate success and provided users with an effective way to engage in online discussion groups. Yahoo Groups allowed users to have group chats, share files, share calendars, set up polls and receive regular updates from group members via email.
It was a great way for users across the world to collaborate and keep up with news and opinions on topics close to their hearts.
Consumers gradually moved away from Yahoo Groups and towards more modern alternatives for connecting with friends and sharing interests online.
In 2020, Yahoo! announced that Yahoo Groups would be discontinued. They cited a number of factors, including the costs of maintaining the platform, declining usage and the rise of newer, more popular social media and group messaging platforms.
As one of the earliest platforms for building online communities, Yahoo Groups will always hold a special place in internet history.
The closure of the service was a sad occasion for the remaining loyal users. But it was hardly a surprise.
Many users had already migrated to more modern online community solutions.
Let’s run through some of the modern alternatives to Yahoo Groups and some other email-based solutions for building online communities.
Facebook Groups
Launched in 2010, Facebook Groups was one of the more modern solutions that users began to embrace instead of Yahoo Groups.
Facebook Groups allow any user to create and join groups around a particular interest or topic.
One of the major benefits of the platform is that it uses the standard Facebook interface that many of us are comfortable and familiar with. So there isn’t a huge learning curve to get started.
Facebook Groups also has a wide reach, with it being estimated that more than 1.8 billion people worldwide use the service every month.
But the wide reach and familiarity of the platform create their own disadvantages.
Anyone can set up their own group, and there are often multiple groups for one topic, many of them inactive. Due to the size of the platform, and the wide range of groups available, it can often be challenging for smaller groups to stand out or build a significant following.
Facebook also has an ad-based revenue model, which allows advertisers to target based on interest. So if you’re a member of multiple car enthusiast groups, you can expect to be targeted with more car-related content.
LinkedIn Groups
LinkedIn is a social networking platform that is designed for professionals.
LinkedIn Groups provide a space for people in the same industry or with the same interests to connect, share news and opinion pieces, and engage in discussions.
Participating in LinkedIn groups can be a great way to showcase your expertise and enthusiasm for a particular industry or topic, and can be particularly effective for making connections that are useful for your own professional development.
But some users find that some groups aren’t effectively moderated on LinkedIn, which can lead to spammers and certain members engaging in a one-way promotion.
Simplelists
At Simplelists, we make group email communication easy.
Our mission is to make it simple for anyone within an organisation to set up an effective group email list without any technical knowledge.
Our solution is simple to manage and maintain, with easy ways to import, move and copy contacts between lists. Setting up eye-catching emails is also a breeze.
There is a whole range of intuitive moderation and configuration options for your group email management, to ensure that you have the control you need over your email list and the messages your subscribers receive, and avoid landing in the spam folder.
Simplelists is also ad-free, so you don’t have to worry about your group emails being interrupted by unwanted ads or promotions.
Google Groups
Google Groups is a free service that has valuable functionality for both businesses and individuals.
From an individual perspective, you’re able to use Google Groups to join email groups and meet people with similar hobbies or interests. It’s a great solution for encouraging group discussions.
For businesses, you can embrace Google Groups to organise meetings and events and set up group mailing lists where you can email a number of people from a single email address.
Some organisations have concerns about the amount of data that Google holds on them, so may choose not to embrace Google Groups through worries over privacy.
Groups.io
Groups.io is an email-based group communication service.
It allows organisations to set up their own email lists for recipients to communicate and collaborate.
It also allows the members to access a comprehensive range of features including:
Calendars
Polls
Databases
Photos
Files
Unlike Facebook, LinkedIn and Google, Groups.io is a paid service, with rates starting from $20 per month based on the number of members within your group.
Groups.io prides itself on having no advertising throughout the platform, and no unnecessary tracking. This should reassure users who are concerned about privacy.
Groups.io also integrates with a lot of commonly used technology such as Zoom, Slack and Trello.
This is really a solution designed for organisations who want their teams or members to collaborate and work together over email. There aren’t currently many public groups.
Gaggle Mail
Another solution that focuses on group communication and collaboration via email, Gaggle Mail is a cloud-based Listserv alternative.
One of the things that makes Gaggle Mail attractive for smaller organisations is that it’s free to set up lists with fewer than 1000 recipients.
So if you’re looking for email-based group communication for your internal teams, you can get up and running with Gaggle Mail quickly and efficiently.
It has all the customisation functionality you’d expect from a comprehensive Listserv solution and seems to have good reports of email deliverability.
The costs do increase quite rapidly after you move past 1000 subscribers, which is something to be mindful of.
With the tool focusing on email group communication, it also doesn’t have chat or supporting functionality like calendars, event planners or polls.
L-Soft Listserv
The original Listserv technology that enables organisations to manage email discussion lists, email newsletters and email marketing campaigns.
L-Soft Listserv is a favourite of Ivy League schools in the USA, who create email groups for students to share information, resources and links when collaborating on a topic or subject.
All email messages are archived, so administrators can see exactly what is being discussed if needed.
With over 35 years of experience in the industry, the team at L-Soft certainly know their stuff about group communication via email.
The one reported downside of L-Soft Listserv is that it can require some technical knowledge to get set up correctly.
Ready to get started with your own groups?
The internet has come a long way since the launch of Yahoo Groups in 2001.
Yahoo! was once the place to go if you wanted to be an active part of an online community, but more modern and effective solutions have emerged over time.
Some of the best modern alternatives to Yahoo Groups include Facebook Groups, LinkedIn Groups, Google Groups, Groups.io, Gaggle Mail, Listserv and Simplelists.
Each platform has its own set of features and benefits. It’s important that you take the time to make the decision that is right for you, based on the specific needs of your organisation.
As Simplelists, our mission is to make group email communication easy. We make it simple for anyone to set up and manage a group email list.
If this sounds like what you’re looking for you’d like to give Simplelists a try for yourself, we have a one-month free trial available.
Are you searching for an efficient, effective and straightforward way to communicate with your team members, students or email subscribers?
Listserv groups might be the answer you’re looking for.
What is a Listserve group and how does it work?
Listserv is a type of email service that allows you to communicate with large groups of people easily and effectively.
By sending an email to one address, a Listserv will automatically distribute a message to all the email addresses that are within an assigned list.
Listserv is actually a trademarked term, owned by L-Soft.
L-Soft were the company behind one of the earliest Listserv group email communication tools. However, Listserv is now broadly used as a term to refer to any type of list-based group email technology.
There are many different applications of Listserv.
If you’re looking to send email marketing messages to your list of subscribers, Listserv can help you do that. You can set up one-way lists (sometimes known as announcement lists) where only administrators of the account can send emails to all members.
But one of the most valuable benefits of Listserv is the ability to encourage collaboration and build a community amongst your subscribers.
By setting up a two-way list (sometimes known as a discussion list) the recipients of your email can reply and have their responses sent to all other members of the list. This makes Listserv great for clubs, universities, and work teams that need an easy way to keep in touch and collaborate.
Another great thing about Listserv technology is that it’s really simple to set up multiple lists. This makes it highly effective for the segmentation of email marketing databases and makes it easy to create lists for different teams within an organisation.
What is a Listserv used for?
Listserv is an easy, effective and affordable option if your organisation wants to communicate with groups of people via email.
You don’t need advanced technical skills to get up and run with Listserv. This makes it a favoured solution across many sports clubs, charities, and educational establishments looking for a solution that’s easy on the finances and is also simple to manage and maintain.
Many enterprise-level organisations also use Listserv as a way to communicate across teams or even reach large numbers of subscribers with their promotional emails.
Collaborative uses of Listserv
One of the most common uses of listserve is for collaboration and discussion between groups of people within a company or an organisation.
Some practical examples of a how Listserv can be used for collaboration and discussion include;
Project management
Listserv is a great way to encourage communication discussion between different team members that are working on a project. It can be used to share project updates, help ensure that everyone is on the same page, and prevent miscommunication.
Brainstorming and idea generation
A Listserv can also be effective in helping groups of people share ideas and feedback within a team.
Sharing ideas via email in a Listserv group can sometimes be more inclusive than having an in-person brainstorming session.
Certain members of the group might feel uncomfortable with public speaking, but more comfortable having the time to type up their ideas and edit them before sharing.
Resource sharing
Listservs can also be used to share documents, spreadsheets, and links to other resources that other members may find valuable. This is often one of the most effective uses of Listserv within educational establishments.
Announcements and broadcast use of Listserv
Another common use of Listserv is for sending announcements and email marketing messages.
For example, a charity may want to send a broadcast email to its subscribers letting them know about recent fundraising efforts. They wouldn’t necessarily want a group discussion about this, so they would use an announcement list rather than a discussion list.
Announcement lists are also commonly used for email marketing, where organisations can send emails to different segments of subscribers to raise awareness, drive traffic to their website and ultimately increase sales.
Listserv VS Distribution List: let’s clarify
Many people confuse the terms ‘Listserv’ and ‘distribution list’. But the difference between the two is actually quite distinct.
Listserv is the name often given to list-based group email technology. A Listserv sends emails to different lists of subscribers.
A distribution list is a name given to a list of email subscribers.
So in summary, Listserv is the name of the technology that sends your emails. A distribution list is the list of people to whom a particular email is sent.
How to create a Listserv: 3 simple steps
Modern Listserv solutions are typically cloud-based and very user-friendly and intuitive. This makes it easy for anyone to access and get up and running.
Choose an efficient Listserv software
Choosing the right Listserv software is an important decision that can impact the success of your email communication strategy.
There are a variety of different Listserv solutions, all with their own different features and benefits. You need to choose the one that is right for you, and your organisation’s needs.
If you’re new to Listserv technology, we’d recommend looking for a solution that is easy to use, allows you to personalise messages, supports HTML email, and has effective archiving capabilities.
You’ll also want to consider the customer support that is available on each solution to help you get the most out of the platform.
At Simplelists, we offer a free trial so you can try out our features and benefits before making your final decision.
Set up your lists
Once you’ve chosen your Listserv provider, it’s time to set up your different lists.
It’s worth nothing that most Listserv solutions will need you to verify that you have all the correct opt-in permissions for any email addresses you upload.
If you’re setting up email marketing lists, consider creating a one-way ‘announcement list’. Think carefully about segmentation. Most Listserv solutions allow you to create unlimited lists. This gives you a lot of opportunities to become really granular with your targeting, but it also needs to be manageable!
If you’re setting up different teams within your organisation and hoping to encourage collaboration, you’ll want to set up two-way ‘discussion lists’.
It’s worth remembering that your team members might not be familiar with Listserv technology, so you might want to put together a quick guide on how everything works.
CSV imports are probably the most common way to bring your data into a Listserv, and are supported by all modern Listserv software providers. Some providers may also link with your CMS or Data Management Platform, to make bringing in data even easier for you.
Put your Email Marketing Strategy into place
Once your lists are in place, it’s time to create your emails.
Most modern Listserv software supports HTML emails. So, if you’re using Listserv for marketing, you’re able to send promotional emails that look eye-catching and professional.
If you’re using Listserv for two-way communication, you’ve got a variety of different options for the moderation of messages from your list members.
It’s possible to set up your Listserv so an administrator has to approve any emails before they reach everyone.
How you approach these settings really depends on the nature of your organisation. Having an administrator approval of messages prevents any irrelevant or inappropriate messages from reaching the group, but it also slows down any real-time collaboration.
Explore Listserv yourself, with a one-month free trial of Simplelists
If you’re searching for an easy and effective way to improve communication with team members, students or subscribers, Listserv could be the solution you’re looking for.
Whether you want to reach a wide number of people with email broadcasts or build collaborative communication amongst different teams - Listserv technology can support you.
There are a variety of different Listserv solutions available, and it’s important that you choose the one that is right for the specific needs of your organisation.
But if you’d like to experience the benefits of Listserv yourself before making a decision, sign up for a one-month free trial at Simplelists.
But these kinds of results don’t happen by accident.
A well-managed mailing list is essential as the foundation of an effective email marketing campaign.
In this article, we’ll discuss email list management best practices for building, segmenting, and personalising your electronic mailing list as well as strategies for keeping it clean and up to date.
What is an electronic mailing list and how does it work?
An electronic mailing list is a collection of email addresses from people that have opted-in and agreed to receive emails from your organization. A healthy email list is important if you want to see success from your email marketing activities.
In the early days of email marketing, it was typical for all the recipients of an electronic mailing list to receive the same message from a business.
But with modern email management solutions, it’s best practice to segment your mailing list using criteria like demographics, location and buying behaviour.
Working with email management solutions that support segmentation enables you to deliver more relevant emails to the recipients on your mailing list and improve the performance of your email marketing.
How to build an email list
Building an email list may feel like a daunting task to some people.
Generating thousands of subscribers is very rarely something that happens overnight. Patience and hard work are key.
We’ve put together a few methods that can help you build your electronic mailing list.
Newsletter sign-up on your website
Make it easy for people that are visiting your website and enjoying your content to sign up to your list.
Have a clear, attention-grabbing call to action that prompts people to sign up. Don’t hide your email list sign-up form at the bottom of your footer!
One email list management best practice is to include the use of modals or slide-in banners on your website that clearly state the benefits of becoming part of your email list, to help prompt engaged site users to sign up.
Social media promotions
Your social media channels can also help you build your email list.
Some channels like LinkedIn and Facebook give you the ability to run ‘lead generation’ ads. With a lead gen ad, a recipient will typically sign up for your email list in exchange for a valuable piece of content you’ve provided.
The success of Lead Gen ads really depends on the value of the content you provide as your ‘lead magnet’, but it can be an effective way to build up email subscribers.
Organic social media can also help you build your list. You might consider running a promotion that encourages your followers to sign up for your newsletter to receive an exclusive discount.
In-person events
If you ever exhibit at trade shows, exhibitions or conferences, make sure to collect email addresses from the people who visit your stand.
To keep data secure, it’s often email list management best practice to use an electronic device like a tablet to collect email addresses in person.
Email list management best practices
Once the number of contacts in your list starts building, there are certain best practices to follow to ensure you get the best out of your email marketing efforts and adhere to all relevant legislation.
Make sure you meet all legal requirements
The most important step in email list management is to make sure you comply with all local legislation.
One of the important things to remember is that you should only process the data for customers that have directly opted into your email list, or that meet another legal basis for processing data under the GDPR.
You should also make it easy for any subscribers to opt out of your email list at any time.
Design an onboarding strategy
When subscribers first join your mailing list, your ‘welcome series’ of emails can really help set the tone for their experience with your organization.
The first email should ideally welcome them to your list and set their expectations for what they are likely to receive from you in the future.
You might use the next two emails to help illustrate your brand story, what makes you unique and the value you offer to customers. You might also introduce your email preference centre at this point, to allow customers to let you know the types of emails they are interested in receiving.
You can then tailor future emails based on the subscribers’ preferences.
Prioritise quality over quantity
Making sure you manage expectations properly and only send emails that are relevant to subscribers is the key to building long-lasting relationships with the people on your email list.
Sending a high volume of emails to an audience that is uninterested and disengaged is likely to lead to high spam reports and high unsubscribes. These are both things that can impact your email deliverability.
Sending emails that are highly relevant to each recipient is the secret to developing a healthy email list. You can achieve this through personalization and segmentation in your mailing list manager.
Personalise your emails and campaigns
By including personalized details such as the recipient’s name, or the products they have recently shown an interest in, you can build a more personal connection with the people on your email list.
Personalisation can also improve the performance of your emails.
A study by Campaign Monitor found that people were 26% more likely to open emails with personalized subject lines. So personalization within your email list manager is important.
Segment your email list
Segmentation is one of the most important things you can do to optimise the performance of your emails and maintain a healthy email list.
By tailoring your emails to your subscribers’ details and preferences, you can deliver more targeted content that really resonates with them. This will increase the relevancy and lead to more opens, clicks and conversions, as well as reduce spam complaints.
Common segmentation methods for email list management best practices include:
Demographics (age, gender)
Location
Purchase behaviour
Interests
Stage in the customer lifecycle
Make it easy to unsubscribe
Including an easy, simple way to unsubscribe from your emails is necessary if you’re going to comply with current legislation.
Including an easy unsubscribe has the additional benefit of reducing the number of spam complaints which can have a positive impact on your overall deliverability.
Deal with inactive subscribers
Your sender reputation matters in email marketing.
If you continue to send emails to inactive subscribers on your email list, you are artificially reducing your own open rate.
If a subscriber is inactive for a period of time consider sending them a re-engagement email to try and encourage them to start interacting with your email again. This might include a personalized message such as “We miss you!...” with an incentive like an offer or promotion to get them opening and clicking through.
If the recipient doesn’t engage with this approach, you might consider moving them to an ‘inactive’ segment or removing them from your list completely.
Let users manage their preferences
Preference management is another email list management best practice that allows your subscribers to have control over the frequency and types of emails they receive.
Your subscribers should ideally be prompted to update their preferences in your email preference centre during their onboarding stage and reminded at regular intervals.
By understanding how often recipients want to be contacted and the type of email they would like to receive, you can improve your relevancy and overall email performance.
Track your results
You should keep an eye on important metrics like bounces and undeliverable messages, and take steps to remove these records from your database.
Tracking your email marketing results is also important for understanding what works and what doesn’t.
You should also ensure that any links in your emails have the correct tracking parameters for your chosen analytics platform. This can help you measure things like dwell time and the conversions that come from each of your emails
Some mailing list management platforms can also help you understand metrics such as open rates, click-through rates and the performance of different elements of your emails which can help you optimise even further and make data-driven decisions to improve your email campaigns.
What about using email list software?
Choosing the right email list software is important for helping you to effectively manage your email subscriber list.
It’s important to choose a mailing list manager that can help support you with subscriber forms, segmentation, and the analysis of important deliverability data.
At Simplelists, we pride ourselves on making email list management easy.
We’ve got everything you need to set up, build, and manage an effective electronic mailing list. And it’s simple for anyone to get started.
A mailing list is a collection of email addresses from people that are interested in receiving updates via email from an organisation.
How you choose to engage with the subscribers on your mailing lists really depends on the requirements of your organisation.
Some organisations use mailing lists for marketing purposes. They might send targeted email newsletters or promotional emails to help raise awareness or drive sales of their products or services.
But mailing lists can also be used to prompt discussion amongst subscribers and build a sense of support and community between the members of your list.
In this short article, we’ll look at some of the common usages of mailing lists and the different ways of using them within your mailing list manager.
What is the purpose of a mailing list?
By working with a mailing list in your list manager, your organisation can reach a large group of interested people with a single email.
Broadcasting to mailing lists can often be a cost-effective way for organisations to deliver an email marketing message to their target audience. Email marketing often has an attractive return on investment (ROI) compared to other marketing channels.
Depending on the quality of subscriber data you have within your mailing list, you can also personalise your email marketing communications and create a more relevant experience for your customers.
This can improve engagement and generate leads and sales from your broadcast emails.
But mailing lists are not only useful for email marketing.
They can also be used to generate discussion between members around a particular topic.
Two-way discussion mailing lists enable subscribers to reply to emails. It’s also possible for replies to be sent to all other subscribers.
This can help with collaboration and the sharing of knowledge and resources and can also help to develop a sense of community between the members of your list.
The use of two-way mailing lists can also help businesses gather customer feedback and insights to help improve their products and services.
What are the different communication settings with a mailing list?
There are a number of different configurations that you can use with your mailing lists on your mailing list manager.
1. One-Way Announcement (Broadcast)
If you choose to set up a one-way mailing list, only your organisation can send messages to the subscribers.
Subscribers are not able to reply to or initiate a conversation with you, and there is no ability to generate a group discussion with other members of the list.
A one-way list is ideal when you have a message you want to communicate but don’t want a discussion around it.
Examples of the practical use of one-way mailing lists include:
A promotional email from a clothing business, advertising their winter sale.
An email newsletter from a solicitor, which includes current news from the legal world.
A customer service notice from a broadband company advising and apologising for outages.
An email from a charity providing an update on their fundraising efforts.
2. Two-Way Discussion
Another type of mailing list is the two-way discussion list.
This is where both your organisation and your subscribers are allowed to post messages that will reach other members of the list.
Two-way discussion lists are typically used for encouraging conversation and collaboration.
Examples of two-way mailing lists include:
An internal team within a business, who need to discuss an ongoing project.
Volunteers within a charity who need to collaborate on an event.
Students who have signed up to a particular module and want to share resources and ideas.
Members of a book club who want to share their thoughts on the books they read.
Athletes within a sports club who want to share schedules, training plans and upcoming events.
3. Moderated Two-Way Discussion
The third type of mailing list is a moderated two-way discussion list.
A moderated list is almost identical to a two-way list, except a moderator within your organisation will review all the user generated messages before deciding whether they will be sent to all subscribers or not.
This helps you maintain a level of control over the content and the quality of the messages being sent to your subscribers, whilst still enabling communication and collaboration between members.
The benefits of running a moderated mailing list includes:
Avoiding off-topic or irrelevant messages
Avoiding spam, and making sure that subscribers aren’t abusing the list to promote their own products or services.
Avoiding inappropriate or offensive messages and making sure the conversation remains positive and respectful.
Are you ready to engage with your mailing list?
A mailing list can be a powerful tool for helping organisations communicate with their audience.
Whether you are looking to raise awareness, drive sales or build a sense of community, a mailing list can help you achieve your goals.
With a variety of communication settings, you can adjust your mailing list strategy to suit the needs of your organisation.
If you’re curious about the benefits of engaging with your mailing list, sign up for a free one-month trial of the Simplelists mailing list manager
In the digital communication landscape, email is one of the most traditional channels.
Nonetheless, in recent years, an increasing number of people have questioned whether email is still so necessary – or could be potentially replaced with less time-consuming marketing tactics.
Indeed, several new forms of communication have emerged over the years, mostly in the social media landscape, where the automation tools appear to be more user-friendly and simple-to-use than designing a lead generation and email marketing strategy from scratch.
Despite this, email marketing continues to grow in popularity and is a sure bet for ROI success.
Consider this: for every dollar spent on email marketing, you can expect an average ROI of $40 (source: Omnisend)!
However, approaching an email marketing campaign – particularly a group email one – without relying on a powerful mailing list tool can force you to deal with security, GDPR, and management issues that can seriously undermine your efforts and results.
This is why today we’ll look at:
What email marketing really entails in today’s business landscape;
The key advantages of an effective email marketing strategy – such as the possibility to segment your target audience and personalize your message;
How a user-friendly and powerful email marketing tool, such as Simplelists, can make the difference.
Let’s investigate further!
What is email marketing?
Email marketing, in a nutshell, is a digital marketing strategy that entails sending emails to a specific group of people to promote a newsletter, event, offer, product, or service.
Consider that by 2025, the number of email users worldwide is expected to reach 4.6 billion (source: Statista) – accounting for more than half of the world population, – with over 375 billion emails expected to be sent and received each day.
That’s why, to make the most of it, businesses typically create a list of email addresses collected via ad hoc lead generation forms, in order to:
Efficiently track and analyze their efforts, including using the right automation tools;
Better understand their target audience;
Focus on consent, segmentation, and personalization, abandoning the outdated outbound approach.
Nevertheless, email marketing can’t be a stand-alone tactic, but rather a component of a larger marketing strategy that includes other channels – such as pay-per-click, SEO, and social media.
So, let’s quickly compare a few different channels:
Social Media Marketing: Social media allows businesses to interact and build relationships with their potential customers, but the competition is fierce. Their ROI varies depending on the platforms’ algorithm, but it is typically $2.80.
Search Engine Optimization: With a ROI of $22.24, SEO is an essential tool for any business, because ranking higher on search engines means being more easily found by the potential customers.
Pay-per-click Advertising: PPC ads have an average ROI of about $17 and they help businesses leverage their search engine visibility. However, this is not a one-to-one channel, but rather an advertising tactic. Indeed, 64% of people believe that basic ads are frequently intrusive and annoying (Source: Optinmonster).
Email Marketing: With a stunning ROI of $40, email offers a better conversion rate than any social media channel, as well as a higher degree of personalization and audience segmentation. In the long run, in fact, an email strategy helps building a community of loyal customers and is the most profitable and cost-effective direct marketing channel for moving customers through the purchasing cycle.
As you can see, email is still the most effective digital marketing channel, and a combination of SEO, social, PPC, and email marketing can really help you easily build the most powerful digital marketing strategy – where email can enhance all the other channels, allowing you to retain and communicate with your customers individually.
Let’s take a closer look at the key email marketing benefits!
4 Major Email Marketing Benefits
Personalized Targeting
Have you ever felt frustrated and overwhelmed while attempting to segment your target audience and personalize their message?
A non-personalized approach – whether through ads, messages, or posts – can have a negative impact on your marketing strategy and result in:
Lower engagement and conversion rates, as you won’t be able to address your potential leads’ specific needs, making it difficult to pique their interest and convert them into customers.
Higher costs, because a one-size-fits-all approach would necessitate more resources to reach a broader audience;
Inefficient customer loyalty, as personalization and segmentation are the foundations for building a relationship with customers.
So, why can a proper email marketing strategy – with the help of an efficient email marketing software – help you avoid such risks?
The answer is simple: The key is personalization, which is at the heart of mail marketing.
People, in fact, appreciate it when brands add personal touches to their messages – and email marketing, by definition, allows you to segment your target audience into specific lists that are based on different demographic or psychographic criteria, as well as easily get direct feedback.
A personalized email strategy, in fact, can drive more conversions than any other digital channel – with 66% of online consumers making a purchase as a result of an email marketing message (source: Monetate) – and it is much more efficient if it’s based on a well segmented opted-in list.
You might think it’s easier said than done at this point...
Please, hold on! If you want to segment and personalize your email lists based on various criteria, you should use an efficient email marketing platform.
We at Simplelists understand exactly how such a tool can make a difference for businesses of all sizes. That’s why our group email software includes features dedicated to email customization and segmentation, ranging from multiple lists management to styling.
All of these features would provide you with a full hosting service and management that eliminates the need for you to worry about technical details!
Sales and Lead Generation
As above-mentioned, email marketing clearly has enormous potential for enhancing sales and driving lead generation.
Indeed, if you rely solely on social media or search ads to increase sales, you should be aware that while these channels can help you attract new visitors – and reach a larger number of people at once, – they cannot always help you retain customers or nurture relationships with them.
On the other hand, email would give your company a direct channel to reach out to potential customers and nurture the relationship throughout every stage of the buyer’s journey.
To name a few, email marketing can help you leverage sales in the following ways:
Generating new leads through the creation of a well-structured landing page and opt-in form, allowing you to collect email addresses from both website, social, or ads, to then build a targeted email list that can really make a difference during new product launches;
Lead nurturing and helping leads move through the sales funnel by sending them highly targeted and personalized messages based on their interests and purchase habits, such as special birthday offers, welcome discounts, or abandoned cart emails, in order to create a one-to-one relationship and stimulate the brand loyalty;
Promoting new products, services, or business events through the right email campaign, including powerful calls to action and multimedia content.
As you can see, there are numerous approaches to driving sales through email marketing.
However, all of them would benefit greatly from using an email list management tool like Simplelists.
As a matter of fact, there are several technical details that can make you waste time and effort when segmenting and personalizing your email strategy, going from the design of landing pages to email footers, and email moderation.
What our clients appreciate most about our simple tool is that it allows them to quickly address all of these issues in no time by allowing them to easily customize their emails, subscription forms, footers, and even posting restrictions.
Whatever the size of your company, this can save you a lot of time and resources to devote to your sales or business strategy!
Would you like to learn more about how Simplelists can help you save time, money, and resources? Check out our YouTube channel!
Fidelization and Remarketing
Another significant advantage of email marketing is that it allows businesses to retain and engage existing customers, encouraging repeat business and driving visitors back to websites.
This is because the use of targeted and personalized offers allows for a one-to-one relationship, which gives birth to a proper customer retention and remarketing strategy that can engage customers who have previously:
Purchased your products or services;
Visited your website, blog, or landing pages;
Abandoned their online cart.
Indeed, did you know that sending three abandoned cart emails generates 69% more orders? (source: Omnisend).
However, fidelizing a customer means being present and providing a timely newsletter in order to be perceived as also an expert in your industry. In fact, retaining a customer entails more than selling products or notifying abandoned carts, but also sharing educational content.
With the right strategy, email drives customer loyalty and becomes a necessary channel to use in conjunction with:
A sales CRM system to streamline communication;
An email list management tool to speed up the email delivery process.
Timely Campaigns
Have you ever struggled to find the right channels and times to effectively reach your target audience?
This happens to almost every business.
Selecting the most appropriate channels for a specific campaign in a constantly evolving tech market can be extremely difficult and may depend on a variety of factors.
In fact, while a B2B company may find their target on LinkedIn, a B2C retailer may prefer Instagram or TikTok. However, there is one thing that all business types have in common: email marketing.
Email is unquestionably one of the digital channels that allows anyone to create a truly timely campaign to support the:
Promotion of events, including workshops and webinars;
Seasonal campaigns and product launches;
Time-limited offers, such as discounts or free shipping, which create a sense of urgency and encourages impulsive buying;
Trend-based campaigns which are based on popular topics.
Having said that, it’s clear that email campaigns can help you reach the right people at the right time, providing far more value to the target audience.
Why use Simplelists for your Email Marketing Strategy?
Last but not least, we’d like to show you how Simplelists, our user-friendly email list tool, can truly help you reap the benefits of email marketing by allowing you to:
Let’s take a closer look at why you should use Simplelists for email marketing!
It’s user-friendly
Simplelists, as the name implies, is a truly simple tool that doesn’t require you to be techie to understand and use its interface.
You can simply write an email and send it to everyone on your list with a few clicks, saving you a lot of time and money, and freeing up time for other business tasks!
Keeps your emails out of spam
Spam filters are one of the most difficult aspects of building an email list.
To emphasize the significance of selecting the right tool, we can tell you that segmented and effective email marketing campaigns can result in a 760% increase in overall revenue (source: DMA).
So, to ensure that you get the best results possible, our tool includes a dedicated email delivery feature that gives you access to:
Email delivery reports, which include full receipt information on successful and unsuccessful email deliveries;
Email delivery failures, which help you track all bounces and drawbacks.
No adverts!
Would you like to get rid of advertising?
This is one of the major disadvantages of using free email marketing tools or providers that typically place advertisements in your emails.
It is not only annoying, but it may cause your emails to:
Go directly to your subscribers’ spam folders;
Be perceived as spammy;
Shift the focus from your content to the ads.
That is why Simplelists emails are free of advertisements and allow you to send the most professional and effective messages!
Lets you send HTML emails
Finally, another way you could use Simplelists to improve your email marketing campaigns is by designing and sending eye-catching HTML emails.
Our tool, in fact, will not limit you to the use of preset templates, but will allow you to easily customize and create your emails the way you want, so that you can:
Reflect your branding;
Gain more design control;
Send more engaging, safe, and trackable emails.
Conclusions
As we’ve seen today, developing a valuable marketing strategy can be difficult and time-consuming.
Emails provide numerous benefits, ranging from lead generation to remarketing and branding, but only through the use of a valuable email list tool you can make a difference for your company and achieve the desired results.
