E-mail Appending: Pros, Cons and Action Tips

Spam is in the eye of the beholder. This adage offered by Anne Holland, publisher of MarketingSherpa.com, encapsulates the current discussions about e-mail appending.

Most of the debates center around privacy as it relates to recipients’ permission. Some experts propose that the existence of a business relationship in one channel (e.g., direct mail) doesn’t justify marketers’ contact through another (e.g., online) when the customer hasn’t given his or her specific permission.

“Until [customers] grant permission to send that e-mail, you shouldn’t assume you have it,” says Margie Arbon, director of operations for Mail Abuse Prevention System, a non-profit organization that works with Internet service providers to prohibit vendors from abusing e-mail systems.

Arbon says e-mail appending shifts costs from merchants to customers, because not everyone has free e-mail access. Some people pay by bandwidth, some pay per minute of access, and some have e-mail forwarded to their cell phones and pay per minute of call time, she contends.

On the other side, appending’s enthusiasts point to the low rates of opt-outs from recipients (the commonly cited figure is less than 2 percent of all appended names) as evidence that customers don’t mind having their e-mail addresses appended. Ben Isaacson, executive director for the Association for Interactive Marketing (AIM), a trade organization that helps marketers leverage interactive opportunities, believes that most append providers have taken a strong ethical stance on consumer permission. To ensure this, AIM will release a set of appending guidelines in May that cover areas such as source of names, delivery of message and definition of appending terms (see “For More Info”).

Many proponents also say the marketer/customer relationship carries enough weight to justify contact through appending. Says Regina Brady, president of Reggie Brady Marketing Solutions, a marketing consultancy: “Your customers do like to hear from you.”

Advantages to Appending

Appending’s proponents emphasize several advantages.

It’s cost-effective when compared to direct-mail prospecting. The cost of each appended name often amounts to less than the cost of catalog postage. “You can’t send catalogs once a week; you’d go out of business,” says Brady. “But you can send an e-mail a week.”

For catalogers whose offerings appeal to rural-based customers, appending helps these merchants contact customers directly without going through the U.S. Postal Service, says Reese Weaver, sales manager for data enhancement services at Melissa Data, a data-quality solutions provider.

It establishes and maintains frequent contact with customers who already know your brand—possibly giving you additional multichannel buyers. These customers are worth their weight in gold, says Brady, because of their tendency to purchase more than those who use only one channel.

You can denote a specific number of names to work with, rather than contact your entire housefile at once, says Jackie Gallogly, marketing technology officer for Inbox Interactive, an e-mail marketing agency.

Appending is ideal for established catalogers who want to increase their online presence by communicating Web merchandise offers via e-mail, says Al Gadbut, project manager for append solutions provider Responsys.

E-mail campaigns provide a good means to measure your marketing initiatives. “Direct mail sometimes takes weeks to measure; e-mail takes hours,” says AIM’s Isaacson.

Challenges

Appending does have limitations, some more benign than others.

It relegates you to using your housefile instead of a general prospecting file.

E-mail addresses found through appending may not be the current or primary e-mail addresses of your customers, says Isaacson.

The buying patterns of appended addressees may not match those of pure, permission-based prospects. “When [a business] appends an e-mail address, it is their customer, but that customer may not step right up and start buying,” says Gadbut. “It’s a process. You have to build an online relationship.”

Action Tips

If you’ve decided that appending is right for your catalog and your customers, the following action tips can help you succeed.

1. Append only to names from your housefile. Even Brady, an appending enthusiast, is quick to point this out. “The only way I can justify appending is if there’s an existing customer relationship,” she says. This eliminates not only rented prospects, but also consumers with whom you have no established relationship, such as people who’ve asked to get your catalog, but haven’t yet ordered from it.

2. Segment your housefile. Sources recommend segmenting your housefile before appending, just as you would for any other type of campaign. If you’ve never appended before, begin with customers who’ve done business with you during the past year, says Brady.

Gallogly proposes starting with hotline names, then customers who have purchased from you in the past 30 days, and then repeat buyers. As a general rule of thumb, she suggests following your segmenting system for off-line offers.

3. Question appending vendors. Because appending can be a touchy practice, thoroughly question your practitioner. For example, each append provider has a different definition for terms such as “opt-in,” “opt-out” and “permission-based.”

Anne Holland of MarketingSherpa.com, a publisher of marketing advice for industry professionals, urges merchants to ask append providers about the source of the e-mail addresses and the metrics they use to determine an opt-in. Just because a person doesn’t choose to unsubscribe, does not mean he or she has actually opted in, Holland notes.

Brady recommends asking providers if they’ve developed their own in-house suppression files. Also ask if they’ve run their databases against The Direct Marketing Association’s E-mail Preference Service.

4. Carefully craft your first e-mail communication. Remember that you’re contacting customers who didn’t specifically request the information you’re forwarding to them. Clearly identify your company and its relationship to the customer, says Gallogly.

Brady advises catalogers to keep the message brief and personalize it as much as possible. Most experts also recommend making this first communication an opt-out letter that doesn’t actually sell anything. Save your offers for follow-up e-mails.

Despite its controversy, appending proponents insist that, if carried out responsibly, appending ultimately can bring catalogers the same benefits as direct mail.

For More Info:

Appending guidelines from the Association for Interactive Marketing are scheduled to be released at The Direct

Marketing Association’s NetMarketing conference in May. For more information, visit: www.the-dma.org.

Following is a sample of some of the options, costs and other information about e-mail appending service providers. The costs and match rates vary by the volume of names you give to the provider.

Melissa Data
Solution name: E-mail Append Service
Cost: 20 to 30 cents per append for consumer e-mail addresses
Size of database: 38 million records
Source(s) of names: Multiple Web-based opt-in sources
Match rates: Varies from 5 percent to 15 percent
Emphasis: Customer service and flexibility. “We’re not stuck on one golden rule,” says Reese Weaver, sales manager for data enhancement services.
Contact: Mitch McClenney, (800) 800-6245, ext. 121

Naviant
Solution name: Naviant E-mail Append Plus
Cost: 30 to 75 cents per match
Size of database: More than 70 million e-mail addresses, and more than 170 million physical addresses associated with them
Source(s) of names: Opt-in Web sites, sweepstakes-oriented Web sites
Match rates: 15 percent to 25 percent.
Emphasis: “The breadth, depth and quality of the database,” says spokesperson Leslie Ross.
Contact: www.naviant.com

Responsys
Solution name: Responsys Acquire
Cost: Usually about 50 cents per match
Size of database: 135 million opt-in names
Source(s) of names: Internet game sites, consumer value sites, Internet service providers
Match rates: 22 percent to 29 percent
Emphasis: Accountability: “We guarantee that these names are deliverable, and we can trace the place and date where they opted-in,” says Al Gadbut, project manager.
Contact: sales at www.responsys.com