Secure & Retain High-quality E-mail Lists

E-mail marketing has undergone a major transition during the past couple of years. A survey conducted by The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) found that two-thirds of U.S. companies claimed an increase in their sales in 2001 as a result of using e-mail marketing.

Catalogers who use this marketing vehicle seem to do particularly well: Based on a June 2002 report from DoubleClick, catalogers’ e-mails have the highest click-through rates of any industry — 9.5 percent.

One of the main reasons e-mail marketing is enjoying success is the increased quality of the e-mail lists available. While there continues to be considerable controversy about how e-mail lists are developed and the spamming practices of unscrupulous marketers, the attention now also is focused on the use of e-mail lists developed by acceptable DMA and Association of Internet Marketing guidelines.

And with more responsible marketers harvesting their customers’ and prospects’ e-mail addresses via acceptable guidelines, e-mail lists are becoming greater in number and higher in quality. In fact, it’s estimated there are more than 1,000 business-to-business and 2,000 business-to-consumer e-mail lists now available. You can select from e-mail lists generated from sources such as brick-and-mortar establishments, consumer product companies, high-tech b-to-b companies and publications.

In addition, e-mail lists now offer selections reflecting diverse demographics and psycho-social graphics. For instance, selections offered on some b-to-c e-mail lists include income, SCF (geographic criteria), recency and lifestyle. On the b-to-b side, you’ll find job title and SIC codes.

Collect the Data

If you don’t currently have a customer e-mail housefile, the first step is, of course, to create one by capturing your current customers’ e-mail addresses. Before you begin, however, be aware that recent studies have shown that today’s spam-weary customers want some benefit (e.g., discount coupons, special e-mail-only offers) for handing over their e-mail addresses. Following are some strategies for collecting e-mail addresses in ways that are unlikely to offend your valued customers:

Ask with every order. Your customer service reps can ask for or confirm e-mail addresses with every order. Some catalogers e-mail order confirmations, thus giving customers an immediate benefit for giving their e-mail addresses.

Perform telephone campaigns. Have your reps call customers to request and/or ensure they have customers’ correct e-mail addresses. Your reps simply can say, “May I take/confirm an e-mail address for our files, so we can send to you/continue sending to you special offers and alerts?”

Use catalog tip-ins. Tip into your next catalog a perforated, postage-paid, business reply card for customers to insert their e-mail addresses. Again, there must be a benefit to the customer, so make a special offer or discount to entice them to give you the data.

Try direct mail. Send a direct mail piece that incorporates a discount coupon or other offer that can be combined with your request for e-mail addresses.

Use an e-mail append service. In application, you’d provide an e-service bureau with your housefile of postal addresses. The service bureau then matches its e-mail database to your existing postal database in an effort to append new e-mail addresses. Typically, matching rates on e-mail addresses for customers at home addresses are higher than those at business addresses, which change more frequently.

When compiling your e-mail list, follow the double opt-in procedure. This allows for a “remove” function whereby an individual who got your e-mail can elect to have his or her name removed from future offers. Many marketers ask individuals to send removal requests to an e-mail address that reads, for example, “mailto: remove@abccompany.com.” In conjunction with this step, try to capture every bounce-back, which are e-mails returned to the sender as Mailer Daemons because for some reason they couldn’t be delivered.

Maximize Your In-house E-mail List

After you’ve compiled your e-mail customer file, you may decide to rent it out — a decision that shouldn’t be made lightly. Your list is a valuable intellectual-property asset that, if managed properly, can become a significant revenue stream, in addition to being an effective marketing tool for your own catalog campaigns.

To maximize your e-mail list for external or internal purposes, undergo some list hygiene measures. This can help you track the efficacy of your lists. And when shopping for e-mail lists to rent, ask how often the e-mail list owner markets to its own names. This will give you a good idea of the data-hygiene methods performed on that list.

Ethical E-mail Practices

In this age when privacy has come to include the right to be left alone from spammers, always use the two-step process of opt-out and double opt-in.

Opt-out. In this procedure, the customer is e-mailed a message that provides the option to opt out of future offers via e-mail. (Tip: The subject line should clearly indicate the message is going to the individual “as a customer of ABC Co.” In this way, you may reduce the number of recipients who delete the message before opening it.) E-mail addresses of those customers who opt-out should be removed from the database immediately, in addition to the addresses for any undelivered e-mail messages (i.e., the Mailer Daemons noted above).

Double opt-in. Ask not only if the customer wants to get future e-mails for special offers from you, but also from any third-party to whom you market your e-mail list. Regardless of how the customer responds (i.e., “I just want to receive your offers,” or “Yes, you can provide my e-mail address to other marketers with products/services that may be of interest to me”), send a confirmation e-mail that thanks the customer for responding. In the case of those customers who give permission for third-party solicitations, ask them in which product/service categories they’d like to get future offers.

Conclusion

The DMA study noted above also found that 63 percent of marketers said e-mail was their most effective customer-retention tool. And 37 percent said e-mail marketing was an effective customer-acquisition tool. Couple that with the fact that e-mail list owners, who previously were fairly rigid about terms and pricing for use of their lists, have since become more flexible. These factors should serve as an incentive to catalogers to start testing and using e-mail lists as an integral element in marketing campaigns.

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Steps to Success

How to get the most from your e-mail marketing campaigns:

When renting e-mail lists, use only those that have been compiled via opt-in methods.

When collecting your own customers’ e-mail addresses, offer incentives to customers who hand over the data, such as special discounts or offers.

Personalize e-mails but don’t use the person’s name in the subject line, which often is indicative of spam.

Put in each e-mail multiple links (say, three) to your Web site. An optimal method: Send a customer who previously bought, say, jewelry, to the jewelry pages on your site.

When you send e-mails can impact click-through rates. Most marketers achieve their best results from e-mail campaigns sent Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. It’s assumed that many online customers shop from their computers at work, which are more likely to have faster Internet connections than home-based, dial-up modems.

Claire Carpenter is senior vice president of 21st Century Marketing, a direct- and Internet-marketing media organization with offices in Farmingdale, NY, and Stamford, CT. You can reach her at (631) 306-5250 or via e-mail: ccarpenter@21stcm.com