Many companies large and small collect a ton of offline data on customers and prospects. Initiatives to collect data might be rebate forms, sweepstakes, product registration cards, and the like.

As an email marketer it’s important to have a handle on what your company is doing in this area. Wouldn’t it be frustrating to find out that your company collected 25,000 names this year from a sweepstakes but didn’t ask entrants for an email address and permission to email? Or that you only found out about the sweepstakes 9 months after it ran, long after the collected data grew stale?

‘Tis the season…travelers are figuring out how to cram a week’s worth of clothing into their 1 piece of carry-on luggage, or making sure that for their road-trip the credit card has enough available credit to survive the gas pump. Let’s also not forget about 3-day weekends, summer hours and the plain and simple fact that it’s tough to focus on work (and email) when the sunshine is calling.

In an economy where everyone is cutting back and conserving their spending, sometimes just changing how we do things can positively influence our lives without costing us additional dollars. Walking to the train versus driving to work or ordering out less changes the routine and yields positive returns immediately. The same holds true to email marketing.

In regular discussions to improve deliverability, click-through activity and apply email marketing best practices we outline short- and long-term goals and items that can be implemented immediately. Viral marketing, a topic that comes up in nearly every conversation, is often the item that can be implemented immediately to acquire new customers at little to no cost.

If you’re an online retailer you probably have loads of personal and transactional data at your fingertips. Don’t let it sit there and go to waste! Use it to create an existing customer lifecycle program to increase retention.

You’d be surprised at the small number of companies who actually do this. I receive some of the top retailers’ emails and often see generic messages, at the same time each week, in my Inbox.

Here’s a basic four-step plan to get started.

It’s bound to happen, even with a strong and compelling email program; an active email recipient one day may eventually become a non-responder. It’s not to say that this non-responder is unhappy with your products or services. She’s just become indifferent to your messages or has changed her email address and only checks her old one infrequently, and only then to “clean house.”

Recipients who have not opened a message for an extended period of time are most likely reaching the end of their customer lifecycle with you. For whatever reason, they are not opening your regular communications. These non-responders can have a big impact on your open rates. Don’t let them linger.

I often stress the importance of remaining consistent and disciplined in reviewing your email campaign reports and to develop an aggregated monthly spreadsheet to develop your own benchmarks. A monthly Trend Analysis Report I work on with a client is beginning to bear fruit and provides an excellent example of how a simple report can provide the vision you need to make informed decisions.

Five months ago we started the report and had monthly meetings to review the previous month’s results. We began asking questions such as what creative and subject line was used each week and how it may have influenced opens and click rates. Our Deliverability Team was involved and contributed additional statistics such as Sender Score and complaint rates, which added tremendous insight in addition to our standard metrics.