Every once in a while, you will come across an article or comment that says "Email Marketing is now a thing of the past!"… well… let's just say those kind of statements don't have much weight behind them.

According to Campaign Monitor's annual report "email marketing is the king of the marketing kingdom with a 4400% ROI and $44 for every $1 spent!" This makes it one of, if not THE most effective communication channel for marketers.

That being said, email marketing is a skill and requires finesse. You can't just wake up one day, purchase a list, and send to it (well...you can, but your results wouldn't be very good). The quality of your list plays a large part in your deliverability efforts and customer engagement. Sending to a low-quality list can result in anything from hitting spam traps that damage your reputation and resources, receiving complaints, high bounce rates, and overall poor deliverability.

In order to avoid these deliverability issues, you must first put together a high-quality email list. We got together with a few of the industry's largest senders and picked their brains about how they typically go about compiling their lists.

• First and foremost, you've got to make it easy for recipients to subscribe. Get creative! Use day to day website interactions like during purchases or other specified website interactions to prompt people to sign up for your newsletter. Hint* - if you offer them relevant content they want to read or incentives (think coupons or special deals), they are more likely to subscribe.
• When they opt in, give them choices as to what content they would like to receive! This will help you better target your campaigns down the road.
• Tweet, post, comment, and blog away! Use those social media outlets to connect with potential subscribers and leads. Try and entice them with special offers in exchange for their email addresses.

Once you've got the addresses, you MUST maintain them – otherwise, what was all of your hard work for in the first place? There are several strategies worth employing in this regard.

• Validate the addresses in real time during sign up (Check out our great, real-time API for this here). If you can verify the address at the point of collection, you are starting off on the right foot and setting yourself up for success from the beginning. Don't be a reactive sender, protect your reputation and avoid bad email addresses from the get-go.
• Keep in mind that on average bounce ratios change 3-5% and threat ratios change 7-9% each month. If you go more than a month or two without a cleaning, your data will quickly become outdated and irrelevant. AKA all of your hard work protecting your resources and organically sourcing a great list goes down the drain.

Impressionwise offers a complimentary evaluation, so that you can check out the makeup and quality of your list! Upload your list today and get a copy of a personalized List Profile Report...