We all know that letting something go can be a real challenge. Whether it was your favorite childhood toy or maybe even your first car, we all have to learn that most things don’t last forever. 

The same goes for certain aspects of your business. You may need to get rid of certain services or products that are just not attracting your customers’ attention or are costing more than they’re bringing to your business. 

One thing that’s often overlooked? Cleaning out contacts from your customer relationship management (CRM) system. 

We all have stale contacts in our CRM, but when is the right time to kick ‘em to the curb? That’s what I’m here to tell you! Let’s do a deep dive on what goes into a healthy CRM.

What are The Benefits of a Clean CRM

We all have unengaged contacts in our CRM. You would think since these contacts aren’t doing anything, it won’t hurt anything, right? 

Wrong! Here’s why: 

Let’s say you decided to eat out one night and brought home some leftovers that you couldn’t finish. You plop the styrofoam box into your fridge and forget about it. 

A couple weeks later, you find it, still sitting on that fridge shelf. Would you still eat it?

Hopefully, your answer is no. 

The leftovers decaying in your fridge are like the unengaged contacts in your CRM. A healthy CRM contains mostly healthy, up-to-date contacts who are engaging with the content you send out. 

Contacts switch up emails and phone numbers. They move to new jobs. Their lifestyle changes. As time goes by, your database health will start to decline. 

For example, say your business sells baby products. Babies grow up, and families tend to stop having kids at some point. They’re not going to want to look at an email selling baby products — like diapers — when their kid is no longer using them! 

Contacts who aren’t engaging aren’t doing anything for your business — and could be hurting your email open and click-through rates (CTRs). 

Having a clean CRM means you’ll have:

• Higher email deliverability
• Fewer contacts bouncing
• Increased email engagement
• Fewer SPAM complaints
• Better open rate and CTR

It’s easy to see that having a clean CRM is beneficial to your business’s marketing efforts. So, why not do it?

Things Your Email Contacts Want You to Know

How Should I Clean Out My CRM?

Now that we understand the benefits, let’s talk about how to actually keep a clean CRM. All you have to do is a little bit of digging.

Get Rid Of Unengaged Contacts

This might seem obvious, but if a contact shows signs of not wanting your product or service, clean them out. 

Sure, there are contacts that might be a new lead and, while they’re not ready to buy yet, may purchase in the future. We’re not talking about those contacts.

We’re talking about the ones that have consistently shown no interest in your business.

These are contacts who have not opened any emails in the last two years, or contacts who have unsubscribed from receiving any emails from you. It could also be cold leads that aren’t picking up the phone or responding to emails. 

When you clean them out will depend on your sales cycle and your business, but the important thing is that you have a process to weed these contacts out. 

So get rid of those dead leads and concentrate on the ones that are engaged! 

Get Rid of Bounced Contacts 

Sure, it was fun playing with bouncy balls or bouncing on the trampoline when you were a kid, but that’s not the bouncing I’m talking about. 

• Hard bounces indicate a permanent deliverable error — meaning you can never reach them through the email they provided. You want to get rid of these.
• Soft bounces mean a temporary delivery error — like if their server was down or the message was too large for the contact’s inbox. You can keep these around a bit longer, as long as they don’t continue to bounce.

Why is it important to get rid of bounces and have a low bounce rate? Email service providers can tell if you have high bounce numbers. If your bounce rate is too high, it lowers your credibility, meaning your emails are more likely to go to SPAM.

So let’s just bounce those hard bounce contacts out of your CRM! 

Staying Visible with Email: Ways to Avoid Spam Folders and Unsubscribes

How Can I Keep My CRM Clean?

Now that you know when to clean a contact out of your CRM, let’s make sure your CRM stays clean. 

Build Healthy Lists

The email lists you are sending out to should be built with healthy, engaged contacts to maintain a strong CRM. Create workflows or automations within your CRM to weed out future contacts who go stale.

Also make sure that you’re not inheriting lists from other CRMs who haven’t explicitly opted in to receive your emails. Never buy lists. These are easily caught by email service providers, and those bought contacts will lower your email reputation and put you in the SPAM folder.

A way to avoid this is to build confirmed double opt-in lists. That way you know for sure that the contacts want to receive communication from your business.

Yes, it might mean your lists end up a little smaller than you’d like, but these contacts are actual leads and not just filler.

The Manifest Matters: Why List Building is Key for Email Performance

Keep Them Engaged

Have a group of contacts that you would like to check before you drop them from your CRM? Try a re-engagement campaign! 

These campaigns help make sure your good leads don’t get lost. This is as simple as following up with them via phone or email. Just have a simple script saying, “Hey, are you still there?” or “Just checking in!” — asking if they are still interested in your products or services. 

Here is an example of a re-engagement email for a monthly newsletter list for a dealership. It’s an easy way to get a click — helping your CTR — or segment out people who click “no.”

No Time for CRM Cleaning? Let Us Help.

Don’t want to deal with the headache that is CRM cleaning? Let us do it for you! 

Our team is ready to get all of the spring cleaning done in your business’s CRM and make your stats and conversions skyrocket! 

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