Technology Meetup Recap: Email List Management

On Thursday, May 13, the American Booksellers Association held a Technology Meetup focused on email list management.

A recording of this session can be viewed on the Education Resources page on BookWeb.org.

The session was led by Constant Contact Retention Specialist Cynthia Munoz, who shared best practices applicable to any platform and offered a demo of how to implement those best practices within Constant Contact.

Here are some of the top tips from the session:

• Keep track of email bounces, which occur when the person on the receiving end does not receive an email. Emails bounce when a contact is non-existent or their inbox is full, among other reasons.
• To manage email bounces, check to see if there was a typo in the email address. If possible, try to get in touch to update their address.
• Bounces due to vacation/auto-replies should not be removed, as the recipient will eventually see the email once they check their inbox.
• In addition to bounces, emails can be sent to spam. It’s best to avoid certain language in subject lines, such as “call now,” “earn XXXX per week,” “winner,” and “free,” as well as typing in all uppercase letters with excessive use of punctuation and symbols.
• Through Constant Contact, recipients can unsubscribe themselves from the footer of the email, or the sender can unsubscribe them. Senders can also upload a list of emails they’d like to unsubscribe.
• Be sure to update lists regularly, by adding new contacts and unsubscribing bounced contacts.
• Segment email lists based on the content being sent; send the right messages to the right people.
• And be sure to delete email lists that are no longer being used.

Additionally, more specific questions about Constant Contact were discussed during the Q&A portion of the session, including changing up subject lines to entice inactive contacts, understanding delivery issues, and pairing images with text effectively. (The Q&A portion begins at 23:00).

Some of the following help documents were also mentioned during the session:

• Connect your social media accounts to create social posts
• Connect your social media accounts to social share
• Create a lead ad for Facebook and Instagram
• Create a lead generation landing page for capturing new sign-ups