Yesterday, Tal Nathan of StrongMail published an excellent column in ClickZ that details his advice for reinvigorating your email program for spring.  While I agree with everything he said, there is a point I’d like to add and a section that I’d like to expound upon.

• Creative Redesign – Tal mentions that spring is a great time to refresh your email templates.  And when you do so, expect to see a 25% lift in engagement for up to three months.  He also touches on using analysis to steer your redesign efforts.  Good stuff.  I’d just like to add that continually applying a multivariate testing strategy that accounts for tone, copy, layout, and CTA with each every campaign is a solid approach. Continually working to redesign email templates based on sound analytics will result in optimum performance and ROI, and it’s something you can do all year long.
• Clean Your House File – Since spring cleaning is the tenor of the day, why not clean your house file while you’re at it?  Look for names that haven’t engaged in months, and implement Tal’s reengagement campaign.  When you know a contact is dead, remove them from your list.  You should also remove any opt-outs you might have missed with your first sweep.  Ideally, you’re going through this cleaning process more frequently than once every spring.  Doing so will protect your sender reputation, and leave you with a file of only your engaged recipients.   If you don’t have the resources to do this yourself, there are a number of companies that specialize in this service.  

I hope you’ll consider adding these strategies to Tal’s already excellent approach.  For the full text of his column, head here.

What other “spring cleaning” advice do you have for email marketers looking to reinvigorate their email programs?