Here’s a question that will make your Chief of Staff uncomfortable:
How many of your constituents have you lost contact with in the past year?
The brutal reality: Every year, approximately 10% of your email database becomes invalid. People change jobs, move, update email addresses, or mark your messages as spam because they’re not relevant.
In practical terms, this means:
- Your 5,000-person email list loses about 500 valid contacts annually
- Without regular data hygiene, you’re gradually losing touch with constituents
- Your staff is wasting time crafting messages for ghost contacts
- Your most important announcements are hitting dead email addresses
Meanwhile, other Senate offices are systematically:
- Running annual data hygiene services to maintain list quality
- Acquiring fresh contact data to replace outdated information
- Building targeted segments that actually want to hear from them
The result? They’re achieving 60-80% open rates while you’re struggling to hit 25%.
Your constituents are out there. The question is: Are you reaching them, or are you just sending emails into the void?