This Month's Email Marketing Question:

Time to Purge "Dead Wood" from Our Email List? - or Not?  
(Part 1)

In today's marketplace, most organizations are cutting expenses any reasonable way they can. And who can blame them?
    
So, it's understandable, since email tracking tools provide senders with almost instant feedback (telling them who "opened" an email and/or who "clicked-through" to a particular web page) that some marketers are tempted to grab hold of this techno-wizardry to identify and remove "dead wood" from their lists. Some might even argue that if direct mail marketers had ever developed identical feedback mechanisms, list-trimming would already be a long-established practice.
    
While the concept of list-purging may, at first glance, seem to be an attractive option, in the long-run such thinking takes us away from a well-proven, universal, marketing principle.

Sales Is All About Timing
    
Even with email marketing's nearly instant "open" and "click-through" feedback, the one question that no tracking tool can answer is this: "Which email is going to lead the prospect to buy or take action...and when?"
    
Today someone may not be interested in you've been promoting over the period represented by your last few emails (or direct mail campaigns, for that matter), but next summer they may be looking to buy one of your warm-weather products or services. Or, they may be waiting until their tax refund comes in. Or, maybe they want one of your big ticket items and they've put off the purchase until they have the cash in hand, or until they get their charge accounts paid down.
    
Just because some prospects aren't "looking" today, doesn't mean they won't be buying tomorrow...or next month...or next season...or even next year...when the timing is right. In the meantime, who knows which "Subject Lines" in all those "unopened" emails have been keeping them thinking about you? Who knows how many times your "From Name" has almost lead them to open your email and visit your web site, but each time they thought, "I just don't have time to do that right now, but I'll open their next one?"
    
And what's the cost of keeping your name and brand in front of each prospect via email? A few pennies per contact.
    
Sales IS all about timing, and email is such an inexpensive way to stay connected with subscribers.
    
"In Conclusion" (Somewhat)
    
If your organization is considering purging all the apparent "dead wood" from your email lists, please, on the basis of the above information alone, reconsider doing so.
    
We especially recommend that you wait until you have a chance to hear what Paul Harvey calls, "The rest of the story." In upcoming e-newsletters we will be sharing a number of other reasons for exercising restraint, and not hastily giving in to the list-purging impulse.

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