If you're a HubSpot marketing user, you've likely faced the challenge of managing your marketing contact limit. Reaching this threshold can hinder your marketing efforts and complicate your overall strategy. But don't worry—this blog post will guide you through understanding the marketing contact limit, its impact, and seven actionable strategies to reduce your contacts effectively.
Understanding the Marketing Contact Limit
First things first—what exactly is the marketing contact limit? In HubSpot, this limit is the maximum number of contacts you can market to within your account (e.g. send a marketing email to). Calculating this involves adding up the contacts who have been marked as a marketing contact. When you exceed this limit, HubSpot charges additional fees, which can quickly add up and strain your budget.
The Impact of Exceeding the Limit
Surpassing your marketing contact limit isn't just a budgetary concern. A bloated contact list can dilute your engagement rates and reduce the effectiveness of your campaigns. Lower engagement can hurt your sender reputation, leading to lower deliverability rates and fewer successful campaigns.
Segmenting Your Contacts for More Targeted Campaigns
One of the most effective strategies to manage your contact limit is segmentation. By dividing your contacts into smaller, more targeted lists, you can tailor your marketing messages to specific groups. This not only improves engagement but also ensures that you're reaching out to those who are most likely to respond positively.
Segmentation allows you to create personalised campaigns that resonate with different audience segments. For instance, you might have one segment for new leads and another for returning customers. Each of these groups will have different needs and preferences, so your messaging should reflect that.
By focusing on specific segments, you can reduce the number of irrelevant contacts in your list, ultimately helping you stay within your contact limit. It's a win-win situation—you get better campaign results and a more manageable contact list.
Implementing an Email Preference Centre to Ensure Relevance
An email preference centre is another valuable tool for managing your contact limit. This feature allows your subscribers to choose what types of emails they want to receive from you. Giving your contacts control over their email preferences helps ensure that they only receive content that is relevant to them.
Setting up an email preference centre is straightforward and can significantly improve your email engagement rates. When subscribers can customise their email preferences, they're more likely to remain engaged with your content, reducing the chances of them becoming inactive or unsubscribing.
By implementing an email preference centre, you can maintain a cleaner contact list filled with engaged subscribers. This approach not only helps you stay within your contact limit but also enhances the overall effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns.
Top tip: create a workflow that changes a contact's marketing contact status when they 'unsubscribe all' or hard bounce.
Regularly Cleaning Your Contact List to Remove Inactive or Irrelevant Contacts
Regularly cleaning your contact list is essential for keeping your marketing efforts on track. Over time, your list can accumulate inactive or irrelevant contacts that no longer engage with your emails. Keeping these contacts in your list can harm your engagement rates and waste valuable resources.
Performing routine list clean-ups involves identifying and removing contacts who haven't engaged with your emails for a certain period. This process can be automated using HubSpot's built-in tools or third-party integrations. By removing inactive contacts, you can ensure that your list remains fresh and engaged.
Regular list maintenance helps you stay within your contact limit and improves the overall health of your email marketing efforts. A cleaner, more engaged list leads to higher open and click-through rates, ultimately boosting your ROI.
How to: To bulk mark contacts in a list as non-marketing contacts go to 'Select All' > More > Set as non-marketing contact. This can be done in the CRM view of the contacts or in the List view.
Utilising Lead Scoring to Focus on High-Potential Contacts
Lead scoring is a powerful method for managing your contact limit by prioritising high-potential leads. This process involves assigning scores to your contacts based on their behaviour, engagement, and other relevant factors. By focusing on leads with higher scores, you can allocate your resources more effectively.
Implementing lead scoring in HubSpot is easy and can significantly impact your marketing efforts. By prioritising high-potential leads, you can reduce the number of low-value contacts in your list, ensuring that your marketing efforts are directed towards those most likely to convert.
Lead scoring helps you maintain a more efficient and effective contact list, staying within your contact limit while maximising your marketing ROI. It's a strategic approach that can drive better results and improve your overall marketing performance.
Adjusting Your Marketing Strategy to Focus on Quality Over Quantity
A shift in your marketing strategy can significantly impact your contact management efforts. Instead of focusing on acquiring as many contacts as possible, aim for quality over quantity. Targeting high-quality leads who are more likely to engage and convert can help you maintain a manageable contact list.
Focusing on quality leads involves refining your lead generation efforts and ensuring that your marketing messages are tailored to attract the right audience. By prioritising quality over quantity, you can reduce the number of irrelevant contacts in your list and improve your overall marketing effectiveness.
This strategic shift helps you stay within your contact limit while ensuring that your marketing efforts are directed towards those most likely to bring value to your business. It's a more efficient and effective approach that can drive better results and improve your ROI.
Monitoring and Optimising Your Campaigns to Improve Engagement
Regular monitoring and optimisation of your marketing campaigns are crucial for maintaining an engaged contact list. By closely tracking your campaign performance, you can identify areas for improvement and make necessary adjustments to enhance engagement rates.
Utilise HubSpot's analytics tools to monitor key metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates. These insights can help you understand how your audience is interacting with your emails and identify opportunities for improvement.
Optimising your campaigns based on these insights helps you maintain an engaged contact list and stay within your contact limit. It ensures that your marketing efforts are always aligned with your audience's preferences and needs, driving better results and improving your overall marketing performance.
Step-by-Step Guide for Each Strategy
To help you implement these strategies effectively, here's a step-by-step guide for each one:
Segmenting Your Contacts
- Log in to HubSpot and navigate to the Contacts section.
- Click on "Lists" and create a new list.
- Define your segmentation criteria based on factors such as demographics, behaviour, and engagement.
- Apply the criteria and save your segmented list.
- Use the segmented lists to create targeted campaigns tailored to each audience group.
Implementing an Email Preference Centre
- Go to HubSpot's Email section and click on "Settings."
- Navigate to the "Subscription Types" tab and create different subscription options based on content types.
- Design a preference centre page where subscribers can choose their email preferences.
- Include a link to the preference centre in your emails to encourage subscribers to update their preferences. However, this is normally done automatically.
Cleaning Your Contact List
- Access the Contacts section in HubSpot.
- Use filters to identify contacts who haven't engaged with your emails for a specified period.
- Create a list of inactive contacts and send a re-engagement email to confirm their interest.
- Remove contacts who do not respond to the re-engagement email from your list.
Utilise Lead Scoring
- In HubSpot, go to Properties > Create > Contact > Score Property.
There is a HubSpot Score property that could also be used but we tend to recommend keeping that for use in scoring a contact for sales.
- Define your lead scoring criteria based on factors such as email engagement, website activity, and demographic information.
- Assign scores to each criterion and set thresholds for high-potential leads.
- Use lead scores to prioritise your marketing efforts and focus on high-potential contacts.
Adjusting Your Marketing Strategy
- Review your current lead generation efforts and identify areas for improvement.
- Refine your targeting criteria to focus on high-quality leads.
- Create personalised and relevant content that resonates with your target audience.
- Track and measure the performance of your new strategy to ensure its effectiveness.
Monitoring and Optimising Campaigns
- Use HubSpot's analytics tools to monitor key campaign metrics.
- Identify underperforming campaigns and analyse the reasons for low engagement.
- Make necessary adjustments to your email content, subject lines, and targeting.
- Continuously test and optimise your campaigns to improve engagement rates.
Conclusion
Managing your marketing contact limit in HubSpot is crucial for maintaining an efficient and effective marketing strategy. By implementing the seven actionable strategies outlined in this blog post, you can reduce your contact list size, improve engagement rates, and maximise your ROI.
Remember, it's not just about the number of contacts you have—it's about the quality and relevance of those contacts. By focusing on high-potential leads, regularly cleaning your list, and optimising your campaigns, you can ensure that your marketing efforts are always aligned with your audience's needs.
