Subscriber Data Management: Boost Email Marketing ROI

Subscriber data management (SDM) is how networks manage their users' data — by centralizing it in one easy-to-use, efficient location and moving away from unstructured data storage functions.

Telecommunication networks previously relied on repositories to store subscriber data, but that method is no longer efficient. Instead, subscriber data management uses one large repository to make data much easier to manage.

If you're reading this, you're probably not running a telecommunications network, so why does subscriber data management matter? This concept can apply to your business in terms of marketing, more specifically, email marketing.

Centralizing your email list data makes it easier to segment customers, create personalized messaging, and monitor your campaign performance.

In addition, your business might communicate with prospects or customers on many different channels and have multiple data sources. You might use social media marketing, an app, a website, email marketing, and offline methods for obtaining customer data.

Where does this data end up? If you don't have a unified repository, you could inadvertently categorize your customers based on where they communicate with your brand instead of more effective segmentations like interests, behaviors, location, and so forth.

Instead, if your customers communicate with your brand across many network domains and channels, you should still have one central location where you store their data.

Components of subscriber data management

Subscriber data management works differently for communications service providers than it does for businesses, but having a unified repository of customer data can be beneficial to operational efficiency for both types of entities. For email marketing, subscriber data management consists of the following components;

• Subscriber data: To manage your subscriber data, you need their information. If you already invest in email marketing, you should have email lists with your subscribers' names, email addresses, and any other information you asked them to share using signup forms.
• Repository: The unified repository is the central location of your subscriber data; it's where every piece of data you have on your subscribers is stored to help you easily find, document, and analyze it.
• Data analysis: Data analysis is the foundation of subscriber data management. Ultimately, having a single repository for all your subscriber data allows you to analyze and monitor everything from new subscribers to help you grow your audience to the performance of specific email campaigns.

Benefits of subscriber data management

Several basic benefits of subscriber data management apply to businesses.

For instance, unified data management is highly scalable since it only uses one repository to store information. Or, you may have multiple brands with different audiences and separate email lists. However, with unified data management, you eliminate small repositories that account for each brand and instead have a large repository that enables growth.

An unstructured data storage function with multiple repositories will require you to allocate more resources to each repository. If you sell dog and cat supplies, you'll need to spend time managing both instead of one large repository of data.

The benefits of subscriber data management as it pertains more specifically to email marketing include the following:

Makes data easier to understand

Unified data storage makes it easier for you to understand and analyze your customer data. In addition, when your subscriber data is in one location, you can implement any changes based on the data right in front of you.

Instead of looking through different email lists, you'll only need to reference one extensive list, which can help you onboard new customers and streamline various internal processes.

Personalization and targeting of email campaigns

By making data management more streamlined and efficient, marketers can personalize and target email campaigns better. A unified data management system enables segmentation, improving engagement rates and conversions.

Meanwhile, digital marketers can use analytics to find patterns and find more ways to create better campaigns. You can segment customers based on actions they've taken on your website, like recent purchases or information they shared during the signup process.

Increased engagement and conversion rates

Having a unified data repository can increase engagement and conversion rates by enabling more personalized and targeted campaigns. When you have all the data in front of you across apps, websites, and brands, you can begin to create different marketing tactics and find opportunities.

Having a subscriber data management solution allows you to learn more about your subscribers based on the data they've shared with you. A pet product marketplace may ask for information about your specific pet, including whether it's a dog or cat, what types of toys and treats they like, and their specific breed, to provide customers with product recommendations that increase conversions and keep customers coming back for more.

Reduced unsubscribe rates and increased subscriber retention

When you combine increased engagement and conversion rates, you typically see fewer unsubscribes and increased subscriber retention because you use SDM solutions to your advantage.

Your customers choose to share their subscriber information, which opens up the lines of communication between businesses and consumers. By creating more targeted email campaigns, you can find more market opportunities to market new services and find cost-effective campaign ideas that make subscribers want to take action.

Most companies collect subscriber data. After all, you need to know where to send your marketing emails. However, how you collect your data and what you do with it can play a major role in the effectiveness of your campaigns.

If your website isn't integrated with an email marketing platform, you may have lists of subscribers in your website dashboard that you can convert into an Excel file and upload to an email marketing platform. As you can already guess, this method isn't efficient and doesn't provide a good user experience. Plus, it makes managing your subscriber data even more challenging.

Good subscriber data management relies on your ability to collect and organize data, analyze it, and use it to your advantage. Here's how to implement subscriber data management into your email marketing strategy:

Collect and organize subscriber data

The first step to managing subscriber data is to collect it. The easiest way to collect subscriber data is to encourage website visitors, app users, and anyone else you communicate with to sign up to receive newsletters and other forms of email communications.

By integrating your website with an SDM solution, such as an email marketing platform, you can automatically add subscribers to segment lists and a master subscriber list to help manage your customer data and improve data consolidation efforts.

Integrating email marketing software with your business allows you to create compliant signup forms that are easy to use for businesses and their customers. Of course, there are several other ways to collect subscriber data, but we recommend always implementing a double opt-in process that sends an email to the user and asks them to confirm by subscription by clicking a link.

A double opt-in process ensures subscribers want to receive communications from your business and can come in handy if you collect emails in another way. For example, if you collect subscriber information at trade shows using a printed form, using a double opt-in will ensure anyone who signed up knows exactly what they signed up for and allows them to opt-out.

Once you start collecting subscriber data, you can begin organizing it. With tools like Mailchimp, you can segment customers based on almost any type of information, such as location, age, gender, interests, hobbies, behaviors, actions taken on your website, and so forth.

Analyze and use subscriber data to improve email campaigns

Analyzing subscriber data can help you improve email campaigns. For instance, subscriber data can tell you how well your emails perform among your target audience. Are they opening and clicking them? If not, it could mean you haven't analyzed your subscriber data correctly.

While segmentation can be beneficial, it has to be done properly. If you sell makeup, it might not make sense to segment your audience by location unless, for some reason, your business only operates with a specific market or region.

Tools and software for managing subscriber data effectively

Finding the right tools and software for managing subscriber data is crucial. The right SDM solution goes beyond being a unified data repository. Instead, it helps you create effective marketing campaigns based on your collected data.

You can use real-time subscriber data to create email marketing campaigns with automation. Email automation might include sending a welcome series to all new subscribers or sending product recommendation emails based on items subscribers have added to their carts or recently purchased.

Managing your subscriber data is more than collecting your customers' emails; you should continuously manage the data to ensure it's accurate and that you're using it to accurately segment and target the right customers with the right offers at the right time. Here are a few best practices to help you effectively manage your subscriber data:

Ensure data privacy and compliance with data protection laws

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a European Union law that protects consumer data and privacy. The GDPR how businesses can use customer data, including the information you collect through your website and email signup forms.

One of the most crucial components of the GDPR is consent to the use of personal data. This means you must obtain a subscriber's consent to send them any marketing communications, including emails. In addition, you must allow users to access or delete personal data.

Without consent, your business could be subject to lawsuits and fines. So why do data privacy and compliance with data protection laws matter? Ultimately, it can help you improve your subscriber data management systems by ensuring you're only communicating with real subscribers who want to receive your communications.

When you send emails to individuals interested in your products and services, you can increase email engagement and conversion rates. You can ensure compliance by having a double opt-in method, maintaining proof of consent, making opting out of email marketing easy, and obtaining consent to send email communications from contacts you had before the GDPR went into effect.

Conduct A/B testing to optimize email campaigns

A/B testing can help you determine which components of your emails perform best. When you send one variation of your campaign to one set of subscribers and another variation to another set, you can determine the "winner." This information tells you which visual elements or copy resonates best with your target audience.

A/B testing can be as simple or complex as you want it to be, allowing you to test everything from subject lines and calls to action (CTAs) to email templates. For example, if you're using a tool like Mailchimp, A/B testing is easy; all you have to do is create two variations of your email and send it out to determine the winner.

Clean email lists

It's always better to have a consolidated subscriber list of customers who want to hear from your business instead of mass email lists consisting of subscribers that don't engage with your emails. Email marketing allows you to focus on quality over quantity to ensure you engage the right customers at the right times.

A large part of subscriber data management for email marketing is keeping your email lists clean and updated. Data consolidation into one unified data repository only works if the contact information you have for your subscribers is up-to-date and accurate.

Inaccurate subscriber data can hurt your deliverability rates and overall email marketing strategy because you're not sending emails to the right subscribers.

To ensure a smooth transition and store your data in a unified way, you should perform an audit before consolidating data. Then, you should perform regular audits of your subscriber data to ensure you have accurate information.

You can establish your solution or process for updating records in your data repository and implementing changes in your customer relationship management (CRM) tool.

Cleaning your email lists regularly will remove all invalid or outdated email addresses to prevent emails from being sent to invalid addresses and affecting your deliverability rates while improving email marketing results to maximize your return on investment (ROI).

When you search through your email lists, you can look for duplicate entries, typos, and spam addresses and delete them to make sure your emails don't bounce. You should also look at your inactive subscribers. Subscribers who don't open or engage with your emails can affect your stats, and there's no reason to continue sending emails to subscribers who don't take action.

However, instead of removing inactive subscribers, you can send them one final email asking if they'd still like to subscribe to your email communications. Then, if you don't hear back, you can delete their contact information from your email list.

Removing inactive subscribers will increase your open and click-through rates while giving you more accurate real-time subscriber data. Of course, every business should strive for active and engaged subscribers, but you can't expect every subscriber to open every email.

Hence, it's a good idea to have a system in place for determining how long a subscriber can be inactive before you send them a final email or delete their information from your database.

Continuously monitoring and adjusting email campaigns

The only way to create the most effective email campaigns is to continuously monitor their performance and adjust them based on real-time customer data. Subscriber data management can help you learn more about your target audience and find market opportunities that help you communicate more effectively.

With Mailchimp, you can create a unified email list to learn more about your customers. Then, using segmentation, you can create more targeted and personalized email campaigns that increase engagement rates and conversions.

In addition, Mailchimp makes it easy to manage your subscriber data with detailed analytics that help you track campaign performance and touchpoints throughout the customer journey while keeping your email lists clean.