In email marketing, the success of your messages is largely dependent on the quality of your list. In this article, I will discuss Static vs. Dynamic Lists – for instance, we will go over scenarios that are better suited for Static as oppose to Dynamic lists, and vice versa. Then, I will show you how to create a Static list and use Automation Rule to add members to it.
A Static list is your old-fashioned file of contacts to whom you plan on emailing to. Marketers have been emailing to contacts by using Static lists for a long time. Static lists, however, are being utilized less frequently now.
Dynamic lists, on the other hand, have (for the most part) proven to be more valuable and are compliant with sending options.
Static lists are a way to manually organize a set of prospects and group them together. Once a Static list is created, the list members will remain the same unless you add or remove prospects manually. Prospects can be added to Static lists using one of the following ways:
- Manually
- At the time of imports
- Automation Rules
- Segmentation Rules
- Through prospect table actions
When to Use Static Lists in Email Marketing
Static lists are usually used for emails that are sent occasionally, or only sent once. Registrants from an event, or a tradeshow, are usually on a Static list. You can use these lists when you are sending them a one-time email, or follow-up information from an event. Also, sending a monthly newsletter to subscribers’ list does not change often; unless, you want to update the list manually.
When to Use Dynamic Lists in Email Marketing
Dynamic lists are best used for email campaigns in which you plan on sending emails more than once to a certain list of prospects that changes, and get updated, frequently. As time goes on, your Dynamic list would automatically adjust to your changing volume of prospects. For example, you have created a list called Current Prospect. Currently, Raj Malhotra is part of this list. You are sending marketing contents to members of this list. However, just yesterday, Raj became your customer after purchasing your services. As a result, Raj is no longer a prospect but is now a customer! Since Raj is now a customer, you do not want to send Raj a marketing email that is targeted towards a prospect. To auto remove Raj from Current Prospect list, you have to first define this list as a Dynamic list and then set criteria for membership.
Business Use Case
Let us start with a business use case. David Haditsch is working as Content Marketing Manager at GurukulOnCloud. At GurukulOnCloud, they are running their first campaign to promote their products and track activities of visitors and prospects on the corporate website.
At GurukulOnCloud they are planning to organize their first Webinar. For that, they have already created a Form – How to create a Form that prospects actually want to fill out. Now, GurukulOnCloud wants to create a list and add all registrants into it so that after one week of the webinar they can send an email to them. GurukulOnCloud has also purchased hundreds of prospects from World Wide Web and plans to import the prospects and add it to the list.
Solution for the above business requirement
To solve the preceding business requirement we will use Static list. By using a Static list, it is possible to add or remove prospects automatically (Via Automation Rule, Segmentation Rule, etc,) or manually. Read the rest of this entry!
