Way back in the day, when email was mainly used for updates and newsletters, lists were the easiest way to organize your subscribers. Segmenting was unheard of, and you probably sent every email to a handful of lists. It’s no surprise that after years of advancement in email technology, we’ve reached the point where organizing your customers by lists doesn’t make sense.
This post goes over why lists have become a flawed and quite frankly, expensive, way to organize your customers (especially when you’re trying to sell more stuff!).
Goodbye, Lists
What better way to say goodbye to ESPs set up by lists than with a list - these are some of the hardest things about having your customer database organized by list:
1. It’s hard to get an overview of all your customers. With everything living in different lists, it’s difficult to see how many unique customers you actually have. Without this holistic overview, even knowing where to start to create meaningful segments can be hard.
2. It’s hard to manage duplicates. Most ESPs based on lists have a tough time with duplicates - there are no systems in place to make sure your email doesn’t get sent to the same person twice if they’re in multiple lists.
3. It’s hard to create segments. You can group people within individual lists, but as soon as you want to use parameters that customers in multiple lists fall into, you’re in for a headache.
4. It’s hard to determine sending cadence. With customers in many lists, you have no idea when they’ve last received an email from another list.
5. It’s hard to manage subscription preferences. Customers that thought they unsubscribed from your whole list will be annoyed to find out they’re still on other lists, and there’s no visibility into all your unsubscribed customers across lists.
6. It’s hard to save money. Most ESPs based on lists charge you for every customer in every list, regardless of duplicates.
7. It’s hard to gain insight from reporting. When reporting is specific to a list, you miss the bigger picture of how your holistic email strategy is generating revenue.
Hello, Email Marketing CRM
When you use an email marketing CRM built from the ground up for ecommerce, all of the above problems disappear. Segments give you a flexible way to bucket your customers into every relevant parameter, without breaking up your list. This means reporting on individual segments is easy, and you can get the holistic view of how your campaigns and automations are working together.
If you’re ready to say goodbye to lists and have questions about migrating to Hive from your current ESP, give us a shout: hello@hive.co.