Regardless of if you have a list of customers on an excel spreadsheet or you have a fancy CRM system which you probably rarely use, your database is fast becoming one of your most important assets.

One reason is because it is an asset you 100% own, unlike your social media channels.

Consider this…

Over the years you have done business with clients, pitched to but didn’t win prospects, met people at events and built your network and maybe you’ve done some list building marketing using social media.

But here are the 3 problems I commonly see:

• They are added to your database and forgotten about
• You send one massive long email to your entire base
• The contacts are old and out of date

Yes, all those things are bad, but they are fixable. Let me address them for you:

Issue 1: Added to your database and forgotten about

Over the years you have likely collected a bunch of names & email addressing in your database. You have good intentions but what happens is you’ve added them to your list, and they get the odd email from you but you basically forget about them.

The idea of having a database is so you can nurture these potential leads and turn them into clients (hopefully). Set and forget doesn’t work for a database.

Instead, create nurture funnels and set up consistent communication with your people. It is not hard to set up and keeps you top of mind for when they are ready to buy from you.

Issue 2: You send one massive long email to your entire base

I get these emails in my Inbox every day, especially from professional services businesses who might send an update once a quarter or a couple of times a year. And they wonder they don’t work? They are impersonal, filled with some much information, I don’t know where to start and are just boring as hell. Seriously I had an ex-accountant send a PDF that was 6 pages of text. Talk about put me to sleep. There was no way I would ever read that. And note that I said EX accountant.

Instead, focus on one or two key messages and send more regularly. It will get more cut through, less unsubscribes and be a much nice experience for your readers.

Issue 3: The contacts are old and out of date

If you are not actively cleaning your database, chances are there are lot of old names on it. People move jobs, close businesses and change emails all the time.

This creates a problem when you went to send emails from a CRM like Mailchimp. Too many bounce backs will result in your account being flagged and possibly banned, as it looks like spam.

Regularly keeping your contact list clean will save a lot of potential issues and LOT of time when it comes to sending out your email communication.

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