If you are like me then most of your excitement and effort is focused on gathering new email names to your list. However, the management of your list after the initial connection is very important to your success. What you do with the email address will largely determine whether your readers stay with you instead of opting out, open your emails, read your content and click on your links.

Tips For Managing Your Email List:

Stay relevant & interesting - keep an eye on your stats to see if your bounces, unsubscribes start spiking upward, or conversely if your open rates start falling dramatically. This becomes especially important as you build out your email list and start getting some volume, altering your content or subdividing your list. If you start seeing movemment in any of these three stats it could mean that your readers are not finding your emails as interesting as tehy used to.

Create value - your email list is a valuable piece of property. Remember that when you plan your marketing campaigns. Think about ways you can add new value to your email messages. Don't send emails just to stay in touch... give your reader something of value.

Consistency - Make sure you deliver! If people signed up for a tip of the week then give them a tip every week. Don't fall behind. Don't add filler.

Reactivation - if you can, you should segment out names that have been inactive for a length of time. If manes have not opened your last 7 emails try sending them a special message acknowledging the inactivity. Then either make thme a special "come back" offer, ask for them to provide feedback, or encourage them to update their preferences.

Clean your list - weed out invalid addresses, serial bounces and long time non-responders. This will provide you with a more realistic picture of your email list. Your open rates, click rates and conversions for more recent names are sure to be better than for your older names but you'll never know it if you lump them all together.

Honor you opt out requests - when your readers request an opt-out make sure you act on it and get them off your list righ away. Technically you have 10 days to respond but faster would be better.

You might also enjoy reading these other articles in the Building Your Email List series:

• Email List Building Ideas
• 7 Proven Ideas For Building Your Email List Online
• 6 Ways To Build Your Email List Offline
• How to Welcome New Email Sign-ups
• Tips For Managing Your Email List
• Building Your Email Lists With Incentives