Marketing Cloud Contact Strategy for Dummies

Messy contacts make for messy strategy when it comes to Account Engagement. It’s one of those little bits of maintenance you need to be doing to ensure you get the most out of your tools, but many marketers don’t prioritize it. Don’t be like them! Have a strategy for your Marketing Cloud contacts and make things easy on?yourself!

Why the Revenue?Matters

With the latest Google Mail updates , your domain reputation is more important than ever, and you maintain that through list maintenance. You want to make sure you have a low bounce rate and high open rate while also sending the right signals to the algorithm. It sounds crazy, but the way to do that is by emailing everyone in your database once a month, while also maintaining high relevance. That can be a difficult needle to thread when you have a disorganized, ever-expanding database. When you’re not keeping your lists clean, there’s not just a monetary cost, there’s an opportunity cost. What is your dirty list costing you?

Keep Your Lists Pristine Well Into the?Future

Now we get into segmentation rules, one of our favorite parts! Whole strategies are built around segmentation, with separate customer journeys being created for things like different levels of prospects regarding their buying potential, or sending materials and assets to the different departments in a company, casting a wide net and hoping to influence top-level decision makers. We’ve talked about segmentation before because we love it that?much.?

Mind Your Contact?Limit

You need to know what your contact limit is, otherwise, you could roll over it and increase the price you’re paying. This is just something you need to watch so that you’re aware of how much money you’re putting in. You don’t want to have to adjust your budget over something so?simple!

Just How Many Contacts Are In?There?

Feels like the logical next step, right? Take stock of the contacts you have so you can see just how close you’re coming to going over. All you need to do is head to Contact Builder and then the All Contacts tab. Then you click on all contacts and you’ll have your total number. You’ll want to check this now and then. Don’t go too long without seeing how close you are to your?limit. Once you do this, it’s good practice to go through the list you have and find which contacts are still viable. How long has it been since you communicated with them? Is the lead dead? Removing contacts that aren’t viable clears out space for ones that?are.?

Spruce the Place Up a?Bit!

Building on the cleaning theme, the maintenance for your contacts goes beyond just making sure those contacts are viable. You’re also going to want to check for things like duplicate records. Sometimes people will fill out a form twice and they’ll take up twice the space on your list. No one wants?that! There also may be contacts that just aren’t right for you and your organization. There may be contacts from internal staff or even your competition in there! Use the automation studio to filter these contacts out and then set them free. Open up more spots in your?list.

As long as you’re maintaining good segmentation...

...and ensuring your contacts are viable, you’re going to have a much stronger environment with much better chances at conversion! If you’re having trouble getting all of this in a viable place, SLX is here to help!