11 Email list management best practices for business growth in 2023

Brands put tons of effort into generating leads and growing their audiences. However, many email marketers exclusively focus on seeing their subscriber count grow and forget all about the maintenance that a healthy email list requires.

We’re here to help you get the most out of your email marketing strategy with excellent email list management. If you aren’t already familiar with it, we promise it’s more straightforward than it sounds.

Discover what actions to take for great email list management, the advantages it can offer, and our top 11 most email list management best practices: 

Email list management is a strategy that includes managing, organizing, and optimizing your subscribers to keep your list engaged, lean, and in great shape over time. Effectively managing your email subscribers list is fundamental to a healthy email marketing strategy. It guarantees targeted emails, effective segmentation, and a clean list devoid of inactive subscribers. 

Email list management is a highly effective way to get the most out of your email marketing budget and build a high-quality subscriber list that will drive business growth over time. Here are a few of the biggest benefits:

There are many actions you can take to keep your email list healthy, but here are the 11 best practices we think are most impactful.

Communicate what kind of content people can expect from your email list before they even opt-in. That way, they’ll understand exactly what they’re signing up for and make an informed decision about whether they want to do so or not.

Many people hit unsubscribe because they get emails that aren’t in line with what they were expecting or what’s relevant to them. Avoid that problem by telling people what they can expect from you up front.  Better yet, let subscribers choose what they’re interested in (and how often they want to hear about it) with Form Preferences.

This opt-in form template shows how you can tell your audience what kind of content you’ll be sending out while still encouraging them to opt in: “Join my regular newsletter to learn something new each week about building a sustainable business you’re truly excited about!”

A double opt-in process means that potential subscribers will have to complete two steps to successfully join your contact list. 

Usually, your leads will sign up for your email newsletter with a signup form, landing page, or pop-up. If you have a double opt-in strategy set up, they’ll receive an email after they submit the information that asks them to confirm their email address and grants explicit permission to add them to your subscriber list. 

While email marketers debate the effectiveness of single vs. double opt-ins, one thing’s clear—double opt-ins normally result in higher-quality contacts, more engaged email lists, and fewer complaints or unsubscribes.

Tagging and segmenting your subscribers is one of the best ways to consistently send people relevant, personalized email marketing content. 

In case you aren’t already familiar with these terms, let’s dive into some definitions.

Segments: How you split up your entire contact list based on their relationship with your brand. Some common examples include:

Contact tags: Get even more specific about customer behavior by adding additional filters to your segments. For instance:

A welcome series email campaign are multiple emails that companies send to new subscribers as soon as they opt-in to their email marketing list. 

Welcome emails are a great way to start your relationship with new contacts and set the stage for high engagement.

Follow these best practices to send out fantastic welcome campaigns:

Get further inspiration from our top 15 welcome email tips and examples. 

A little personalization can go a long way. Sending personalized emails allows you to send useful, relevant messages to your subscribers.

For example, the Canadian boutique Ad hoc sends subscribers emails with curated content based on their browsing history. Whoever received the email pictured above was looking at the dresses on their website, so it’s likely they found this targeted content informative and helpful.

Here are some other dynamic ways to personalize email content:

Choosing an excellent email marketing platform is one of the best things you can do to seamlessly manage your subscribers. High-quality platforms like Flodesk have built-in features that make it easy to keep your email list in shape while ensuring your marketing is brilliant and beautiful. .

Here’s how Flodesk helps with list management:

Just like everything in life, subscriber lists need a deep clean every once in a while. Here are a few actions you should make a habit of to keep your email list in great shape:

Many brands send out re-engagement campaigns to reactivate unengaged subscribers and remind them of everything their business has to offer. These are great for boosting sales, but they’re equally good list management tools.

Re-engagement email marketing campaigns make sure that the subscribers on your email list are as engaged as possible. Studies show that it’s 5x more expensive to generate new leads than to re-engage existing ones, so do your best to keep contacts engaged and  interested in your business.

Londre Bodywear is a Vancouver-based sustainable swimwear company that sends simple, effective re-engagement emails, like the example pictured above, when a customer hasn’t made a purchase in a while.If you want to create your own re-engagement email series to win-back lost subscribers, read our how-to guide.

One of the best things you can do to keep your subscribers happy and your email list healthy is to let your contacts manage their own preferences. That means asking them what kind of content they want to receive and how often they want to get emails—which you can easily add to your opt-in forms within Flodesk. 

Many brands allow new opt-ins to set specific email preferences on their sign-up form or opt-in page, like in the Flodesk example above.

If you already have a subscriber list and haven’t asked for their preferences yet, not to worry. There are a couple of ways you can do so:

To maintain a healthy email list, sometimes you have to know when to let subscribers go. You might have to prompt inactive subscribers to unsubscribe at the end of a re-engagement campaign, and occasionally you’ll need to remove highly disengaged subscribers yourself.

While no one likes losing subscribers, it’s essential to maintain a lean email list that will help drive your business forward.

Make it easy for your contacts to opt-out of your email list so you don’t increase their frustration or worsen your brand reputation. It’s also necessary to let people easily unsubscribe from receiving your email marketing content to stay compliant with data privacy regulations like GDPR.You can use unsubscribes to gather valuable feedback about your email marketing content. As people opt-out, ask them why they no longer want to receive your emails and take note of their feedback to inform your future strategy.

Last but not least, use your email signature to open the door for conversation with your customers. If you make your subscribers feel comfortable reaching out to you, you’ll build a rapport with them over time and they’ll be much more likely to get in touch if they have any problems with your email content or feedback to share with you.

Check out how Cause We Can Events concluded one of their emails above. In this email, they’ve:

We gathered some expert advice about how to maintain your email list and what to avoid in the process.

Here are a few mistakes to avoid to ensure you’re making the most of growth opportunities:

Not asking subscribers for their details: While you don’t want to ask subscribers for too much information, collecting key data can help you send highly personalized content that resonates with them

All in all, maintaining a healthy email list is all about prioritizing your subscribers’ needs⁠. Be transparent, follow consent best practices, and send personalized content that resonates with them. Do everything you can to boost subscriber engagement, like letting your audience adjust their preferences or opt-out of your list if necessary.

Flodesk helps entrepreneurs and small businesses alike to manage, grow, and nurture their email lists. The intuitive drag-and-drop builder and stunning templates make it easy to design emails people love to get.  Try it free for 30-days!

There are many best practices you should implement to make sure your email list stays healthy over time. To start:

There are many things you can do to build your email list, whether you’re starting from scratch or already have subscribers. Follow these 11 steps and see the impact they can have on your list growth:

Seeking extra inspiration? If so, learn how to grow your email list.

Defining a good email list size is difficult because it depends on numerous factors, like industry and subscriber engagement. An email list with 2,000 highly engaged subscribers can be much more fruitful than an email list with 20,000 subscribers who never open emails or click on their content.

As a general rule, you’ll need an email list of at least 1,000 subscribers to start analyzing their behavior and diving into analytics.

The size of your email list can also signal how many emails you should send out. If you have less than 1,000 subscribers, don’t send more than one email per week. Companies with over 10,000 subscribers can send daily emails.