As a member of the Constant Contact community, your success is important to us and providing the tools you need to manage your marketing with ease is what we strive for every day.
Whether you're a seasoned marketer or just starting out, this webinar will provide you with valuable insights and practical tips to effectively organize, upload, and grow your contact lists with Constant Contact.
You can view the webinar directly through Wistia or right here on the Blog!
How do I import contacts I’ve collected from other areas (spreadsheets or from conferences)?
First, make sure these contact uploads align with our permission policy. If a contact doesn’t have a business relationship with you or isn’t aware they may receive communications from you, there is a possibility they will report you as spam and this can result in your account going into an Account Review status.
Good to go? Use one of our many import methods to bring your contacts in and add them to a list.
What tools do you have so website visitors can sign up for my newsletters?
We have multiple sign-up tools available in your Constant Contact account to use on websites. Using a sign-up form lets new subscribers opt in and helps you create a permission-based list. These are the four best designed to be used on a website: pop-up, flyout, banner, and inline. All serve their own purpose but the best part is that your visitor will stay on your website and won’t be redirected.
Any tips for growing my list on my social channels?
Of course! If your business or organization has a presence on social media, your followers may not be aware that you have a newsletter or you’re sending out messages through email. Sharing your emails on your social media channels is a quick way to accomplish this. The URL for a campaign includes a Join My Mailing List button at the very top of the page for your followers to join your list. If you aren’t ready to share your emails just yet, create a Lead Generation Landing Page, share the URL in your posts, and include it in your About section as well.
What is segmentation? How do we use it with contacts?
Segmentation is breaking a large group of contacts into smaller parts based on shared interests, traits, or behaviors. When you segment your contacts and send the right message to the right people, you get better open rates and better overall engagement with your emails.
How do we segment our contacts?
We’ve made it easy to segment your contacts. Creating a custom segment lets you choose exactly how you want to sort out a specific group of contacts. You can segment contacts based on specific criteria including whether they have or haven’t opened or clicked a link in your emails, contact details like a location, or even use a pre-built segment to find your most or least engaged contacts.
How do I delete unnecessary contacts?
You might want to take a look at these contacts before deleting them. There is an opportunity to re-engage with these contacts. We talked earlier about segmenting contacts. You can use the pre-built segment to find your Least Engaged contacts. Depending on your business or organization, create a campaign specifically designed for them. Consider sending them a special discount or offer to re-engage them, or send a survey to get feedback on your content.
If you don’t hear back from them, you can remove these contacts to keep your contact lists clean and up-to-date so you can concentrate on those who actively engage with your emails.
We have created a lot of lists over the years. Can I delete some of them?
Yes, you can delete a list. When deleting, you are given two options: delete the list or delete the list and contacts. We’ll explain these in more detail:
- Delete the list and contacts - This option deletes the list and all of the contacts on it from your account. If you have contacts on multiple lists, they won't be removed from them. Deleted contacts aren't marked as unsubscribed, so if you need to add them back to your account later, you can.
- Delete the list only - This option only deletes the list and leaves the contacts in your account. You may end up with contacts that are not assigned to any list, but you can manually add them to a different list so they don't miss out on the emails you're sending.
What if you only have 3,000 contacts? Do you still segment?
First: 3,000 is a number to be proud of. Second: you can! There isn't a minimum with segmentation. Do you have different messages to convey to different subsets of your contacts? You may send a newsletter to everybody who is on your general interest list, and then you may have certain things that you only promote to a smaller subset. There's always an opportunity to group your contacts in ways that make sense to you and your organization.
Can you add custom criteria to make automatic segments?
Yes, you can create custom combinations of criteria or create custom segmentation paths, based on things like engagement with your emails, clicks, and opens, or based on information you're collecting on the contact records themselves or maybe new information you start to collect down the road.
I need help understanding the difference between tags and segments.
Tags give you the freedom to apply additional information to a contact record, that that is relevant to you. Once you have that information, you can create segments off of tags. Segments are geared around some of those characteristics your audience has in common or around the actions that they take with you.
We are a nonprofit, and we have very specific segments and various types of emails. Is it better to create many email lists or segments from a master list?
Using those segments takes the work off of your shoulders. As people fall into or out of your segments, we pull them into or out of those groups automatically. Let the system work for you and organize your contacts.
If I want to segment a list by age, for example, but I don't have that data yet, how can I ask my contacts to provide that data? Maybe a poll with age ranges?
That is one way to accomplish this. Something to consider is that your contacts may wonder why you need this information. Be transparent when you're collecting demographic data from your contacts. Let them know why you want or need that information and what they'll receive based on providing that information.
How can I capture birthdays to send birthday emails to my contacts?
You can collect birthday and anniversary information through the Update Profile form. Similar to what was mentioned above, let your contacts know why you are collecting this information and how it will be used.
What kind of content should we share with our most engaged contacts?
For contacts who frequently engage with your emails (opening and clicking links), think about how you can reward them. Can they get a special discount or freebie? If you’re not ready to make that kind of offer or you’re not in the retail business, is there another way to thank them? Maybe they can participate in a special survey or influence an upcoming event. You can even apply this to contacts who aren’t engaging by creating a win-back campaign.
