7 Email List Management Best Practices & Tools

Keeping your email list healthy is like staying fit. It isn’t a set-and-forget activity; it’s a consistent, lifelong practice.

There’s no magical tool that drives all the results, no single task that will get the job done. You must do many things right to see tangible results.

There are, however, tools and strategies that are more effective–and easier–than others. In this guide, we will look at the eight best email list management practices to keep your email list lean and healthy.

But first, let’s answer a few basic questions.

Email List Management Best Practices Q&A

Here are some quick answers to the most frequent FAQs on email list management.

What Is Email List Management?

Email list management is a term for the various actions and tactics used for maintaining contacts in your subscriber base and all its segments.

It includes ensuring you collect the correct email addresses, segmenting your list, using contact tags, identifying and removing disengaged contacts, managing bounced emails, and more.

A well-managed email list is more responsive to your campaigns. Responsive subscribers lead to higher conversions as engaged contacts open your emails, enjoy your content, and click on your links.

How Do I Create and Manage Email Lists?

To create and manage email lists:

1. Add sign-up forms and pop-ups to your blog posts.

2. Use a welcome gate on your website for new visitors to sign up.

3. Add a newsletter signup to your social media profiles.

4. Send a welcome email to new subscribers.

5. Clean up your email list regularly.

6. Segment your email list for targeted content.

7. Re-engage inactive subscribers.

What Is the Best Application When Managing a Large Mailing List?

Choose the best application for managing a large mailing list from the following popular software. Be sure to compare features and pricing to ensure the application you use is compatible with your goals!

1. beehiiv.

2. ZeroBounce.

3. HubSpot Email Marketing Tools.

4. Active Campaign

5. Constant Contact.

6. Sendinblue

7. Mailchimp.

8. Moosend.

9. Campaign Monitor

10. Substack.

How Do You Maintain Contact Lists?

Here are a few ways to maintain your contact lists:

1. Use double opt-in, not single opt-in.

2. Allow users to choose email preferences.

3. Make it easy for contacts to unsubscribe.

4. Maintain list hygiene by removing inactive subscribers.

5. Do not buy email lists.

6. Lower your email bounce rate.

What Is the Best Practice for Email List Building?

The best practices for email list building are:

1. Make sure your sign-up forms are contextual.

2. Use responsive mobile-friendly sign-up forms.

3. Grow your subscribers with custom inline CTAs in your content.

4. Use an email gate for specific content assets.

5. Collect email addresses using non-obtrusive methods.

6. Add your newsletter signup link to your social media bios.

7. Rapidly grow your email list using the beehiiv referral program.

How Do I Grow My Email List 2023?

Here’s how to grow your email list in 2023 and beyond:

1. Use lead magnets to entice people to sign up.

2. Run contests and giveaways on social media.

3. Make it easy for your subscribers to share your newsletter with their friends.

4. Include relevant content upgrades on your high-performing blog posts.

5. Use exit pop-ups to capture emails before visitors leave.

What Is the Best Way To Manage Emails?

The best way to manage emails is to:

1. Schedule a time to check and respond to emails.

2. Make different email labels, folders, and categories.

3. Decide beforehand which emails to prioritize.

4. Don’t respond to every email in your inbox.

5. Delete useless emails that clog your inbox.

6. Unsubscribe from newsletters you are no longer interested in.

7. Use the preview feature to see if an email needs immediate attention.

8. Use canned emails to respond to similar messages.

9. Read relevant emails only, not everything in your inbox.

10. Use an intelligent newsletter platform to automate certain tasks.

8 Email List Management Best Practices

Let’s dive into eight email list management best practices to help improve the quality of your subscriber list.

1. Use Double Opt-in.

When collecting new subscriber email addresses using sign-up forms, you can use the single or double opt-in method.

As the name implies, with a single opt-in, once people hit “subscribe” on your lead capture form, they are instantly added to your email list.

But with the double opt-in method, they must confirm their interest in receiving your newsletter by clicking a link in an automated email.

Double opt-in is a beneficial practice because it:

1. Ensures that you get high-quality subscribers who really want to hear from you.

2. Reduces the risk of adding spammers to your list, since subscribers must verify their email.

3. Aligns with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) laws, in case some of your subscribers are in the European Union.

Ultimately, double opt-in produces a more engaged list.

2. Send Welcome Emails to New Subscribers.

Subscribers are like important guests–they deserve special treatment.

You must roll out the red carpet for them. Welcome emails help you do just that. A welcome email is the first official email communication a subscriber gets after signing up. It can be a single email or a series of emails.

Welcome emails are super effective. They drive high conversions and get 4x more opens and 5x more clicks than standard email marketing campaigns.

Welcome emails are crucial for managing your contact list. First, welcome emails set a positive tone for your relationship with subscribers. Subscribers warm up to your brand after receiving it. It’s also an excellent opportunity to set expectations and tell subscribers what to expect from your newsletter.

You can even use it to allow subscribers to pick the topics they want to read about.

3. Segment Your Email List.

Another standard email list management best practice is list segmentation.

List segmentation divides your email list into smaller sub-lists according to their needs for more targeted content.

Segmentation helps you produce personalized content that resonates with subscribers.

The sooner you segment your list, the better, because it ensures people receive relevant content from the get-go.

You can segment your list by:

• Location

• Demographics

• User actions

• Subscriber email preferences

• Past purchases

• Topic interests

• Engagement levels

• Lead magnet choices, etc.

Segment your list for hyper-personalized emails that get clicks.

4. Use Contact Tags.

Generic email messages are a conversion killer.

Contact tags help you send tailored messages based on specific user actions.

A tag is an electronic label you put on email contacts based on specific actions they take when they interact with your brand.

For instance, you can tag contacts who:

• Filled in a newsletter signup form.

• Attended a webinar.

• Visited a landing page.

• Bought a particular product.

• Clicked a specific email link.

• Downloaded an ebook.

After you've tagged your list, you only send specific groups content related to the action they took. These highly personalized messages drive higher opens and click-throughs because the content applies to their needs.

5. Let Subscribers Say How Often They Want To Hear From You.

Email fatigue is real.

Sometimes people feel overwhelmed by the torrent of emails they receive. So, they end up not opening your emails, let alone engaging with them.

The solution?

Once new subscribers sign up, ask them how often they want to hear from you and which campaigns they prefer to read about. Setting email preferences improves email engagement rates, as subscribers only get content they want to receive.

6. Re-engage Disengaged Contacts.

No matter how brilliant your newsletter content is, subscriber interest wanes.

Some contacts aren't as excited to hear from you as initially. They ignore your newsletter. Their priorities and goals may have changed. Having a significant number of disengaged contacts is terrible for your newsletter. It nosedives your open and click-through rates.

The answer?

Write a re-engagement email to win them back.

Here are a few quick tips for writing a killer re-engagement email:

• Use an enticing subject line, e.g., we miss you, long time no see, it's been a while.

• Give them an incentive to come back, e.g., offer them exclusive content or a discount.

• Ask them to pick their email frequency preferences.

• Ask them why they aren’t engaging with your content.

• Include a clear call to action for contacts to click to show they still want to hear from you.

A well-executed re-engagement campaign can re-invigorate many inactive subscribers.

7. Remove Inactive Subscribers.

Sometimes, despite your best efforts to re-engage cold subscribers, they still don’t respond.

In that case, remove them from your email list. Keeping inactive contacts on your list mars your sender's reputation.

Remove all subscribers who haven't opened your emails for a while. It’s up to you to decide the time threshold that shows subscribers don’t want to hear from you anymore and deserve to be chopped off your list.

Whether it’s three, six, nine, or twelve months, it’s your decision. It all depends on your industry, the types of campaigns you run, and what your analytics trends say.

Cull inactive subscribers from your email list regularly to keep your engagement rates high.

8. Always Be Testing.

Modern email automation tools take the guesswork out of email marketing.

How?

Through strategic A/B testing. 

In case you are wondering, A/B testing, aka split testing, is creating two or more variants of an email or page element to see which one performs best based on performance numbers.

Wondering why contacts aren’t opening your emails? Test.

Think one CTA button might perform better than the current one? Test.

Want to see which welcome email is the best? Test.

Do you feel a different email template can boost engagement? Test.

Whatever your rationale, you can confirm or disprove it by testing every element of your newsletter.

5 Best List Management Software

Knowing email list management best practices isn’t enough. You must execute using the right tools.

Here are five list management tools to consider.

1. ZeroBounce

ZeroBounce is an email verification platform.

Key Features

• High-speed email validation (45 minutes to scrub 100k contacts)

• Email scoring system to gauge how engaged your subscribers are.

• Email activity data tells you if your contacts had any email activity in the past 30, 60, 90, 180, or 365 days.

• Inbox Placement Test and Email Server Test to help you set up correctly and improve deliverability.

2. HubSpot

HubSpot has a suite of email marketing tools you can use for list management.

Key Features

• In-built Customer Relationship Management System.

• List segmentation helps you create lists of contacts based on your chosen criteria.

• Personalization functions to boost opens and click-throughs.

• Clean up your contact list by filtering out emails subscribers aren’t opening.

3. Active Campaign

Active Campaign is a customer experience automation platform that merges email marketing, marketing automation, sales automation, and CRM.

Key Features

• CRM to track customer interactions and personalize your campaigns.

• Lead scoring system to measure subscriber engagement.

• Compatible with Gmail, Outlook, and other popular email clients.

• Email marketing automation, including autoresponders and welcome series.

4. Constant Contact

Constant Contact is a digital marketing software for all things digital, including email marketing.

Key Features

• Trigger-based autoresponders to automatically send emails to contacts.

• Tags for labeling and categorizing contacts based on specific conditions.

• Remove duplicate entries and unsubscribe contacts automatically.

• Email list segmentation functionality to create various lists of contacts.

5. Sendinblue

Sendinblue is an all-in-one digital marketing platform.

Key Features

• Contact segmentation to divide contacts into smaller groups of contacts for tailored messages.

• Eye-catching forms for growing your email contact list.

• Create suppression lists and prioritize responsive segments of your audience.

• Automatically send welcome emails to people who sign up for your list.

Using beehiiv for Email List Management

There are many ways you can use beehiiv for list management.

Here are some of them:

• Divide your audience into smaller segments using the segmentation feature.

• Create static segments that don’t update and dynamic segments that update frequently.

• Create professional welcome emails to auto-send to new subscribers after they sign up.

• A/B test every element of your campaign, from the subject line to the footer.

• Automations to create multi-step email journeys based on different triggers.

• Grow your contacts list with pop-ups and advanced email capture.

Our all-in-one newsletter platform gives you all the latest tools you need to keep your email list trim and healthy.

Sign up for beehiiv to grow and manage your email list efficiently.