Organize! pt. 2 { Three Core Lists Every Email Campaign Must Have }

Now that we have created our Triple Core Lists (TCL) and used calc{list}’s outline list type to organize our “New Product” campaign let’s prepare for our second mailing. Right off the bat we know we want to use our first email’s TCL to split this next mailing into two relevant messages; one for those in the {Opened} list and another for the {No Action} list.

We are going to intrigue the first email respondents with some additional helpful content and a gentle nudge further down our sales cycle. So we will create another outline list called {Email #2 – More New Features}. This will be the container list for our #2 email’s TCL.

After we do that let’s create a new list called {Sent - Email #1 – Opened} and drag our original {Opened} list from #1 email into it. Now when it recalculates it has the same contacts as {Opened}. Effectively we have created a second list to rename* the original {Opened}.

To finish #2 email’s TCL we drag and drop {Sent - Email #1 – Opened} into our container list {Email #2 – More New Features}. Whenever we return to our {Email #2 – More New Features} list in the future we will quickly see that we sent the email to people who opened Email #1.

Now what do we do with the people that did not respond to the #1 email? Maybe they just didn’t notice it or didn’t have time to open it. We could just re-send the original but I would suggest that you send them the same email with a different subject line. Subtle changes can have a large impact on your email performance.

So to set up our #3 email’s TLC we go through the same process as we did for #2’s but this time we use the {No Action} list instead of the {Opened} list. Our {Email #3 – New Revised} list will always show us that we sent the email to people who did NOT open Email #1.

Our email campaign can now continue sending both the 2nd & 3rd emails out at the same time. We have effectively branched our campaign using our #1 email’s Triple Core Lists. By doing this we have created target messages based on customer response.

Of course, the branching process doesn’t stop here. We need to capture the final TCL of the 2nd & 3rd emails when the results are in. Even if we don't want to continue with this specific email campaign, the TCL may contribute to a future campaign.

This was a very simple example of how we can capture and organize our contact email lists. You can develop the naming methods and list organization that best suits your needs. You may even want to incorporate Opt-Outs, Clicks and Forwards into your branching strategies.

There is virtually no limit to how you can use and re-use your email lists in calc{list}. So make sure you’re capturing the Triple Core Lists to make all of your campaigns relevant and profitable!

 Does this give you any ideas?

* There is a special type of calc{list} called “View” which is much more efficient for list renaming but to keep the example simple I didn’t want to introduce a new list type. Join our mailing list.