CRM, or customer relationship management, is a type of software growing in popularity and is used in all sorts of companies today. Currently, it has been estimated that roughly 91% of the companies that have more than 11 employees make use of the CRM system – and it is no wonder why.
CRMs are considered the best tools that you can use to consolidate all your marketing contacts in a single space. Most of these tools are fitted with various capabilities that can help with customer relationship management like sales management, content creation, email campaigns, and reporting.
Source: agilecrm.com
However, it is also important to remember that CRMs will start losing their effectiveness if you are unable to maintain them. According to research, it has been found that around 22% of your data tends to go bad every year. Therefore, if you are unable to remember when was the last time when you cleaned your CRM, it is high time to learn how to do so. In this article, we will talk about some types of emails that you can remove from your CRM.
About SignalHire
Before we get into more information about CRM cleaning, let us learn some aspects about SignalHire. SignalHire is a contact finder used by HR departments and recruiting agencies. The tool makes use of predictive analytical tools to measure various aspects of recruitment like recruiter efficiency, time to fill, cost per hire, turnover rate, etc.
CRM is one of the features that are included in SignalHire. With its help, you will be able to track opens, sync your mailbox, send bulk emails to individuals and update email addresses, create black copy email lists, etc.
SignalHire is quite an amazing tool and can work on your browser as an extension. Additionally, the price is extremely affordable for most businesses.
What Should You Know Before Cleaning Your CRM?
Before proceeding with the CRM database clean-up, you need to know that it is not a one-and-done process. You should understand that data keeps changing constantly; therefore, you must be proactive about your approach. It is suggested that you clean your CRM system quarterly to ensure that your data is updated and current.
Source: digitalmarketer.com
Depending on the size of your database, the first few clean-ups can easily take up to a few hours; in the worst case, it could even take up to a few days. While this task may seem daunting, cleaning the database quarterly will be much faster and easier. The groundwork is already done; hence, cleaning and maintaining the data will become much easier and faster.
What Are Some Types Of Emails You Need To Remove From Your CRM Immediately
Some types of emails you need to remove from your CRM are:
Duplicate Records
One of the best ways to maintain the integrity of your data is to eliminate duplicate records from the database. To do this, you need to ensure that your CRM keeps de-duplicating all the subscriber lists. This way, you will ensure you do not get unwanted and multiple follow-ups with a prospect or lead. You need to confirm that every email in the list is working and real during the de-duplication process.
Invalid Email Address
People tend to change their jobs all the time. Hence, it can prove to be quite damaging for your marketing campaign and Sender Score if you send the emails to these now-defunct addresses. Of course, it is not uncommon for companies to keep using the email address of their former employees as a spam trap or a honeypot. After a span of a few months, that particular email address will stop receiving emails. Any emails that you keep sending to the spam trap will be considered spam. Such email addresses and constantly used to monitor and catch spammers.
Un-subscribers
When an individual unsubscribes from your email address, it is always a better idea to remove the contact and add them to a “do not email” list. Additionally, you also need to honor these requests well within ten business days so that you abide by the CAM-SPAM law.
Unengaged Contacts
Email contacts that do not stay active become unengaged and can be classified as email zombies. It is not a good idea to send emails to such email accounts. Contacts engaging with your emails and suddenly stopping doing so can also be called unengaged contacts. If you keep sending emails to such users, there is a risk that your company’s IP address may get compromised. Eventually, this will stop you from sending any type of email at all!
Hard Bounces
There are two types of bounced emails you need to consider – soft bounces and hard bounces. Hard bounces are emails that are continuously sent to inactive email addresses; these bounces are permanent. One of the best ways to reduce the number of hard bounces is to maintain an actionable and clean database.
Soft bounces can be monitored; if the bounce rate does not decrease, you can remove the email address from the list because it is likely that the email address is not being used and is inactive.
Contacts That Did Not Opt In
Remove any email address in your list who you think should not be present there in the first place. Removing these contacts will help improve various aspects of email marketing like click-through rates, email deliverability, sender reputation, etc.
Alias Email Addresses
Alias addresses are email addresses like team@company.com or support@company.com. Most ESPs will not deliver emails to these email addresses list because not all of them are associated with the aliases they have opted for receiving mails from you. In most cases, not all of them would either want to opt for your emails.
How Can You Keep Your Email List Clean?
Once you have followed the above-mentioned steps, your CRM email list will be clear. However, it is equally important to know how to maintain a clean email listing. Some steps that can help you in this aspect include:
The Unsubscribe Instructions Need To Be Clear
You need to provide email recipients with an option to unsubscribe from your emails. Make this option very clear and place them in the footer of your emails. Use a straightforward sentence so that your subscribers do not get confused about their options and make the option simple and fast.
Allow The Subscribers To Edit Their Email Settings
After the subscriber clicks on the unsubscribe button, you also need to provide them with an option to easily edit their email settings. You need to allow them to refine the email, and topic frequency may prevent them from unsubscribing. Always add a link to the bottom of the page for greater personalization.
Always Acquire Subscribers Via Best Practices
After you have removed the unwanted email addresses from the list, you can now start collecting new addresses via best practice. Make use of optimized landing pages and unique content to generate leads. Additionally, you can keep the reputation of the sender safe using a double opt-in.
Send A Welcome Email To New Subscribers
Sending a welcome email to new subscribers is a part of doubling the opt-in process. By forwarding a personalized welcome message, you will be able to confirm the subscription of the user. This way, the prospect will add you as a safe sender, and they will customize their email address accordingly. If you allow your subscribers to choose their preferred communication frequency, it means that you will communicate with them according to their wishes.
Start Sending Re-Engagement Emails
You have a real problem in your hands if the subscribers will stop clicking through your emails. You can start by sending them re-engagement emails where they can provide their feedback. For instance, they can let you know which topics they find the most relevant; this way, you will customize the content the way they want.
Start Segmenting
One of the most important steps of starting fresh is to segment your email list. This way, you will only send relevant emails to your subscribers. If you start sending out the emails without caring about what the recipients are looking for, you will lose your credibility. Therefore, you must start refining your communications and collect lead intelligence to help you know your subscribers. Additionally, you can also start targeting their email addresses based on their actions and behaviors, both off and on the website.
Final Thoughts
If you follow the steps mentioned above, your database will be in much better shape. It is suggested that you create a standard practice document and share it with your team. The document must contain guidelines and templates for capturing data forms, tips on avoiding duplicates, rules for contact and capitalization properties, and instructions for removing old leads. This will help reduce the number of errors in the future and make your next clean-up lists faster and simpler.
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