E-mail List Hygiene: Now More Than Ever

Economic crisis. Layoffs. Companies going out of business. Foreclosures.

Sure, this is a flyspeck of a footnote relative to issues of much greater gravity. But if you’re an e-mail marketer, tough times call for a tough approach to e-mail list hygiene. Particularly for marketers who mail to B2B or corporate clients.

The person at the other end of a subscription to a newsletter, or who had requested offers or product updates, may not be at the other end of that same e-mail address any longer. And you’re smart enough to know that when a terminated employee is glumly packing the contents of their desk into a cardboard box, the last thing on their minds is canceling e-mail subscriptions or clicking that “change of address” link.

There’s going to be a tsunami of bounced, forwarded and otherwise dead-ended corporate e-mail out there. Maybe not the worst consequence of the economic crises, but not a pleasant prospect for e-mail marketers hoping to keep their lists — and their reputations — squeaky clean.

If you’re a marketer or a publisher, I suggest you develop a new bounce strategy.

Now.