The Next Generation of Email Prospecting

Acquisition email marketing is seeing a rebirth in the marketing mix. Interactive marketing is forecasted to reach near $55 billion and represent 21 percent of all marketing spend in 2014, according to Forrester Research, as marketers shift dollars away from traditional offline media.

As interactive channels continue to grab a larger share of the marketing pie, retailers are presented with an ideal opportunity to look at new techniques to better use email and other online methods as acquisition channels, and to properly attribute performance metrics to get a valid and justifiable return on investment.

Better Data Means Better Results
Developing and maintaining a successful marketing program requires more than just raw data. A number of new technologies are now available to lower online acquisition costs and improve return on marketing investments. Automating processes like address correction and email append can be effective means of growing an online customer file.

Some of the latest solutions to facilitate data enhancement and hygiene include email append, reverse append and real-time lead verification. These tools allow marketers to reach customers on a more timely and accurate basis, and serve as valuable assets when trying to communicate with prospects and customers when they're “in market” to buy. Keep in mind, however, that a stringent privacy policy is critical when choosing a service partner.

Increased Market Penetration
Repeating emails over several months has proven to increase awareness and new customer sales. These multitouch emails keep a brand top of mind until a consumer is ready to buy. Touches in several different channels (e.g., direct mail, email, telesales and website landing pages) tends to produce even greater results.

Illustrating the efforts of this strategy, an auto dealership with multiple luxury brands used a multitouch campaign to reach specifically targeted prospects within their core market areas as well as their competitors’ territory. The campaign targeted 60,000 new prospects. In less than a week after the launch, the dealership doubled the size of the program to 120,000 prospects and continued for seven multitouch campaigns. The average new customer acquisition cost was under $800, yielding high margin sales.