E-mail Applied: The Time is Right for E-mail Prospecting

Does the thought of e-mail prospecting send shivers up your spine? Have you deliberately stayed away from even thinking about a test? It’s time for you to rethink e-mail for lead and sales generation.

I want you to consider why you should add this technique to your marketing arsenal.

Why E-mail Prospecting?

Direct mail prospecting is a central part of your marketing plan. Catalogers carefully test and expand on lists that hold promise. And e-mail lists are showing more promise all the time. Their appeal lies in their ability to expand your online marketing efforts.

Your Web site now is an integrated part of your marketing efforts. The DMA reports that about 40 percent of sales are transacted online. If your catalog’s online performance is on par with these averages, you need to find ways to exploit this activity. E-mail prospecting will help you leverage your Web site investment, attract new traffic and drive new sales.

Direct marketing is all about testing and evaluating results. E-mail prospecting is relatively easy to test, is inexpensive, and you can be in the e-mail stream quickly.

It’s a classic risk/reward scenario. To me, the rewards far outweigh the risks because of the low cost involved and potential payoff.

Drilling Down on Lists

During the past year and a half, the quality of e-mail lists has improved remarkably.

The biggest pocket of opportunity is in response files now on the market. A lot of it was driven by the downturn publishers saw in revenue.

So to generate additional revenue, many publishers put their e-mail lists on the market. Additionally, many major e-lists are enhanced with direct marketing buying behavior as well as demographic and lifestyle indicators.

Require your broker to provide you with some history on who has successfully used an e-list. You may not know that a direct competitor used it, but you’ll feel more comfortable if you know that other major marketers are mailing it. And if possible, target your selects around recency. There are no surprises here — hotline names perform better.

Also, ensure your e-mail list broker is knowledgeable. This likely means you won’t be able to use your direct mail list broker(s). But you can ask for a referral. All of the major list brokerage houses now have e-mail professionals on staff.

Put Your Best Foot Forward

Come up with a strong offer that will entice and motivate. If it’s your first e-mail prospecting venture, increase your odds for success with a free shipping and handling offer.

Online marketing firm eROI (www.eroi.com) found that free shipping in the subject line is the No. 1 motivator for getting recipients to open and respond to e-mail.

Yes, you’ll sacrifice some margin. But, think about the lifetime value of your catalog customers. It’s a small price to pay to open up a new marketing channel and develop business.

Other offers you might consider are discounts and sales, premium with purchase, a coupon or a contest. In fact, if you want to be aggressive, combine free shipping with an additional offer.

E-mail List Realities

E-mail is similar in many respects to direct mail, but one big difference is that the list owner typically controls the e-mail blast. This means that if you’re mailing to 10 lists, your message probably will be sent from 10 different origination points.

Merge/purge rarely is done with e-mail. But many list owners allow you to provide them (or a designated, reputable vendor) with your current opt outs and existing customer file. So, the names can be scrubbed before sending. Your opt outs are needed to keep you compliant with the Can Spam Act. If you want to ensure you’re not mailing existing customers, make your broker aware of this requirement before IT prepares the recommendation.

You’ll need to create your e-mail in HTML and in plain text. Most e-lists use multipart
messaging.

That means they send both a text and HTML e-mail along with some code included in the message that allows the appropriate version to be opened in the recipient’s browser.

But don’t rely on the list owner to provide you with good tracking information on performance. Code unique links for each list so you can measure performance. This should be relatively easy if you get your Web team involved.

Creative Do’s & Don’ts

Don’t be image heavy. A sad reality of e-mail marketing is that images can be suppressed. According to one Epsilon study, almost 20 percent of consumers reported images always are blocked in the e-mails they receive.

That’s a major problem for catalog marketers who depend on product pictures to stimulate interest.

Do include images, but make sure there is plenty of copy to support the graphics. Make sure to use ALT tags to name your images. Hosting the images on your Web site also may help defeat some of the filtering systems.

Do keep your message short. The ideal length is about a screen to a screen and a half. Recipients may not be familiar with your brand and will not have the tolerance to scroll and scroll to learn more.

Don’t bury your links. Your first link should be as high as possible in the message. Recipients will click in the most unlikely places. Make sure to hotlink your logo, any graphics and even your headlines.

Do promote your e-mail newsletter — but only as a secondary call to action. While you don’t want to divert attention from your primary offer, it’s worthwhile to mention e-mail promotions. It allows you to capture a new name and extends your return from the e-mail effort.

Don’t forget to test subject lines. Subject lines impact open rates. Consider pre-testing several lists with different subject lines. Then, mail the balance of your list tests with the winner.

Do think about format. Many catalogers use a “postcard” format with a single frame. Consider a two-column design with a larger display column supplemented by a smaller, informational column. This allows you to organize your marketing content.

Success in e-mail prospecting is built on the right combination of lists, offer and creative. Plan to explore this avenue. Start with a solid list recommendation; the time is right.

If the list plan makes sense based on your prior experience, then it’s time to test the waters and expand your business. There can be great rewards waiting for you.

*** Encouraging Number
Here’s some encouraging news. MarketingSherpa conducted a study in November 2006 for its E-mail Marketing Benchmark Survey.

More than 45 percent reported that e-mail prospecting to third-party lists routinely is justified by the return on investment.

Yes, that means it doesn’t work for many. But there are a sizeable number of marketers who now embrace e-mail prospecting!

Regina Brady is president of Reggie Brady Marketing Solutions, a direct and e-mail marketing consultancy in Norwalk, Conn. You can reach her at (203) 838-8138 or reginabrady@att.net.