If you market your business via email, phone or mail, you likely rely on a clean mailing list to communicate with current and potential customers. Lists provide contact information and names of customers and potential customers. The problem with lists is that they are often used automatically, without much checking of their veracity, and become outdated quickly as contacts move. List cleaning services check and update the information on your contact lists.

If customers have asked to be removed from your list but you have not made these requested changes, you could be liable under spam legislation. If you are sending your marketing messages to the wrong addresses, you are wasting your marketing dollars and not making the contacts you need. Brushing up on your list cleaning services basics can help you avoid these problems, since these services hire professionals to update your contact lists for you. When hiring mail list cleaning services, consider the following:

1. Understand what cleaning lists involves and what it can do for your business.
2. Work with email list cleaning services, telemarketing list cleaning services and mail list cleaning services.
3. Run list audits to understand when it is time to update your lists.
   

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Learn what a mail cleaning list service is and how you might benefit from it

If you are advertising via direct mail, phone or email, you likely are relying on a contact list to reach your customers and create leads. Keeping your contact list up to date ensures that you don't waste time trying to contact potential leads through incorrect emails, numbers or addresses. Understanding how lists get out of date and how list cleaning services update your lists can help you choose the right services.

I recommend: Global-Z International has a useful FAQ about hiring a mailing list cleaner and updating mailing lists. ArtsMarket On has a useful article outlining what makes a list outdated and why companies need to update frequently.

Develop a clean mailing list by working with the right service providers

Some companies can clean your mailing list, email list and telephone list. If you only use one type of marketing, you may wish to hire a service that specializes in an email list cleaning service, mailing list clean up or telemarketing list clean up.

I recommend: Leadsmarketer has a handy guide, detailing the various types of email list cleaners that may work for your company. Target Marketing provides an informative article outlining how to get the most from your list cleaning.

Run clean email list and clean mail audits to alert you when your list needs updating

Determining when you need a mailing list clean up can be a difficult, which is why many mailing list cleansing companies offer list audits. These audits involve checking a random portion of your email, mailing and phone lists for accuracy. Based on this test sample, services can tell how much of your list is inaccurate and therefore when a cleaning is called for.

I recommend: Learn more about how mail list audits work at Melissa Data. ClickZ offers a detailed guide to email list clean up audits.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  If you find that your mailing list cleaning service is turning up many errors or you need to update often, consider digging deeper to find out where the problem occurs. Are some of your employees making frequent typos, resulting in accurate information? Are you buying lists from an unreliable provider? One of the benefits of understanding list cleaning services basics is that you can now pinpoint and solve larger problems to keep your lists current.

You rely on contacts to send out your marketing messages, and when those contacts become outdated you need list cleaning services. Businesses lose money when marketing messages are sent to the wrong people, but unless you update your mailing lists, that is exactly what happens. Regular mailing list cleansing helps keep your contact information up-to-date and your target marketing spot-on.

There are many reasons why your carefully assembled or purchased list does not remain a clean mailing list. Contact information for your potential customers and existing customers may have changed or someone may have entered the contact information incorrectly onto the list. Sometimes, the information is correct but is formatted incorrectly, rendering it useless. The result is the same, however: without the right contact information, you cannot get in touch with your potential customers. List cleaning services are the solution. Since you probably have a few different methods for sending out your marketing message, you need a few different mailing list cleaning solutions:

1. Use telemarketing services to clean up your phone list.

2. Get a clean mailing list for your physical addresses.

3. Opt for a clean email list for your online marketing efforts.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Tidy up your marketing efforts with telemarketing list clean up

Telemarketing can be a very effective method for developing awareness about your company, but your telemarketing strategy is only as good as your contact list. If your telemarketing list contains incorrect information, you are wasting money on calls that don't go through and you expend effort on people who you can't reach. A telemarketing list clean up ensures that you are calling legitimate numbers that are formatted correctly.

I recommend: PacificEast promises the fastest turnaround time in the industry as well as newly updated phone information every day from the top four major US directory compilers. BrandBuilderSolutions.com offers telemarketing list management and clean up services that can rid your list of inaccurate and outdated information.

Use mailing list cleaning to save money on postage

Postal rates are always rising, even for business postage, so if you don't invest in mailing list clean up services regularly, you can waste a lot of money. People throw large amounts of advertising mail into the garbage every day because of incorrect addressing. A cleaning list service ensures that your postal list is correctly formatted and accurate so mailings always reach your target audience.

I recommend: Global-Z corrects global addresses and formats them to match the appropriate international postal system. The company obtains information from the postal authorities of each country to ensure the highest accuracy. Northwest Database Services offers standardization and postal mailing list clean up that matches the USPS standards.

Spruce up your email marketing with email list cleaning

Email marketing is very inexpensive, which is why so many businesses love it. Even if you only pay a fraction of a penny to send an email marketing message, however, you waste time and energy if the message does not reach your target. An email list cleaning service ensures that technical problems, common domain name misspellings and invalid email addresses don't mar your online marketing efforts.

I recommend: Return Path Inc.'s Email List Hygiene service can help you target common problems such as format and syntax errors, invalid domains and fake email addresses. EmailListCleaning.com has been offering clean email list services to companies since 2001, and they even offer a unique third party verification service.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  Keep in mind that mailing list cleaning is also important to prevent mix-ups and even brushes with the law. If your company has inaccurate information, you could annoy someone you inadvertently contact. In some areas, regulations prohibit unsolicited advertising, and an out-of-date list can cause you to break these laws accidentally.

Having organized, clean email lists are important for individuals as well as professionals and businesses. Benefits of email cleaning actions and programs are long withstanding and many options are effective in email list cleaning. Untidy email accounts take up time, money and resources which otherwise may not need to be spent. It is vital to businesses that they learn to create a safe and organized email environment and management center through mail list cleaning.

Some managers and business owners may feel that they simply don't have time to do a complete computer email account cleanup. For these companies, it is important to note there are a number of cost and time effective options available. In looking for list cleaning services education and training options, you should:

1. Review the many strategies available to assist in the implementation of mailing list cleaning for large email accounts.

2. Implement strategies found on legitimate and reliable "how to" websites and at related seminars, which would lead to a high-quality and clean mailing list.

3. Look at some of the mailing list cleaner software and applicable training sessions available. This is done to help keep email accounts and their individual emails clean and organized.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Invest in some of the cleaning list tutorials used by companies and businesses

Mailing list cleansing tutorials can make necessary information more easily understood. By migrating along with the tutorial, it is easy for users to stay on the right track or figure out where they may be going wrong in the instructions.

I recommend: Scribd.com offers an easy-to-follow tutorial documenting some of the best methods through which a company or employee can begin to clean up an email list. Tips include the utilization of the ECOA Service, Email Update, which works to replace undeliverable email addresses with the documented working email addresses. MarkingTips.com offers more of a beginner’s tutorial, focusing on simple ways in which users and viewers may set lists as mailing or subscriber lists, in addition to performing processes to clean the lists.

Review the best clean email list 'how-to' sites and seminars available

There are many legitimate 'how-to' web pages when it comes to email list cleaners and an appropriate email list cleaning service. It is important to isolate such sites in order to determine which are most applicable to clean mailing list situations.

I recommend: TheHelpDesk offers a number of how-to information with regard to keeping one’s email box clean and organized through their own, individual initiatives. MarkingProfs.com offers a comprehensive seminar with regard to maintaining a clean email account. Wild Apricot offers additional tips and how-to advice when it comes to keeping email accounts, lists and boxes organized and clean.

Utilize software training programs to help keep your list cleaning services up to date

Many training programs are available when coupled with a specific email list cleaning software package. Software is one of the most convenient methods through which a mailing list cleaning can be organized and structured.

I recommend: The Advanced Email Verifier performs a number of tasks which assist in the clean-up of email lists. Not only is the program capable of verifying email addresses in lists and databases, it also works to import addresses and maintain a detailed log for every operation. DeskShare reviews the specific steps necessary for the proper application of the Smart Email Verifier email list cleanup program.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  There are a number of little things individuals can do on a regular basis to help assist in the organization and cleanliness of their email addresses and email address boxes. Some of these simple mailing list cleaning tasks include making column and list headings clear.

Whether you have email lists, telemarketing lists, mailing lists, or other marketing lists... list cleaning services are an important way to ensure that the contact information is still accurate. There are many list cleaning companies out there, so these key terms can help you understand your options and help choose the service best suited for your business.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

List cleaning

List cleaning refers to the process of ensuring that your marketing, mailing or emailing lists are accurate by removing incorrect contact information and names. If you have rented or purchased a list and notice that it is not getting you the leads you want, a list cleaning can help you glean more useful information from your list by weeding out the inaccuracies.

I recommend: The Direct Mail House has a comprehensive and illustrated definition of list cleaning.

List hygiene

List hygiene refers to the regular updating of your marketing, mailing or emailing lists. Unlike list cleaning, which removes inaccurate information, list hygiene is about getting accurate information up-to-date. Even if you have subjected your lists to list cleaning, you will need to include regular list hygiene services to keep your list current.

I recommend: NextMark has a comprehensive definition of list hygiene.

List enhancement

List enhancement is a process that involves adding data to your current email, marketing, telemarketing or mailing list to improve the quality of your leads. For example, list enhancement might divide your list up according to demographic so that you can send more targeted marketing messages or can combine telemarketing and mailing lists to offer different ways to reach your target audience. Many list cleaning services offer list enhancement packages.

I recommend: ProMarketing Leads has a comprehensive and detailed definition of what list enhancement is and what it does for a business.

Data scrubbing

Data scrubbing is a more thorough form of list cleaning that ensures that your email, marketing, telemarketing or mailing list is free of error, but is also correctly formatted and is in a format that makes it ready to use.

I recommend: Northwest Database Services has a detailed description of what is involved in data scrubbing.

Email Electronic Change of Address (ECOA) services

Email Electronic Change of Address (ECOA) services are offered by some list cleaning companies. These services essentially help you update your email list with a client's changed email. That is, the company will find the email addresses on your email list that are no longer accurate and will actively look for that contact's new email address.

I recommend: Digital Harvest has a comprehensive explanation of what ECOA is and why businesses need it.

Email list maintenance

Email list maintenance is often confused with list cleaning, but maintenance usually refers to the process of changing (rather than merely removing) incorrect contact information from your email marketing lists.

I recommend: YourEZineCoach has a clear and useful definition of list maintenance.