Are your Marketing and Sales Dept on the same page?
Is your Marketing department accountable for its spending?
Recent studies suggest that up to 73% of CMOs have no formal marketing performance scorecard to effectively rate their organization. To survive in today's business environment, marketers must quantify the return on marketing and be accountable for their impact on business results.Developing an accountable, metric-driven marketing organization will help secure your place in the board room, enhance your credibility and focus your efforts and resources to gain the greatest results.
According to Forrester Research findings, "Marketers who play a strategic role within their firms and enjoy a seat at the executive table have accepted ownership of hard metrics that explicitly align with corporate goals - like revenue, customer growth and market share.
"AcquireLists Marketing offers integrated, flexible marketing solutions combining data, database, analytics, creative, teleservices, e-mail and lettershop capabilities. Our standard solutions focus on minimizing the cost and time needed to get database marketing programs up and running. Our advanced marketing solutions offer the ultimate in customization and performance for clients who place a premium on power.
Regardless of where you fit, Acquirelists Marketing delivers results.Our Services include
1) Contact Discovery and List Building
2) Telemarketing
3) Telebusiness and Lead Generation Process Design and Implementation
4) Data Processing for Direct Marketing
5) Database Management and Processing
6) Salesforce.com Implementation and Consulting
To know more about our services please visit www.acquirelists.com
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Enhancing E-Mail Databases With Reverse Append
With spam unabated and the potential for marketers to pay postage for email looming, now's the time to look long and hard at your database. Plan to mail less. Generate more revenue from fewer email campaigns.
It may sound paradoxical, but it's true. An additional consideration is decreasing unsubscribe rates. Judging from responses to previous columns on database segmenting, more education is warranted in this area.
It's time you, or someone in your company, become the chief slice-and-dice officer, the person responsible for analyzing your database and figuring out how to carve it into meaningful subsets with higher response rates than the list as a whole. The primary tools at the Slicer/Dicer's disposal are reverse email appending and data enhancement.
Top-Level View
Here's how it works: Send your email database to one of many companies with gargantuan databases loaded with data from numerous sources. The company matches your email and/or postal addresses against its addresses. When there's a match, it adds information to your records. You get back data-enriched records you can use in e-marketing efforts, both consumer and business-to-business (B2B). It's called reverse append/data enhancement.
As you may know, reverse appending is a common practice in direct mail. In the email universe, some believe reverse appending is as unethical as appending email addresses to a postal database (inadvisable for a variety of reasons).
In this day of existing and pending legislation, the best approach is to request permission to email offers you feel are appropriate, based on data you've appended. With permission, you're on the right side of the issue.
Fees for reverse append usually apply only to matching records. For databases between 500,000 and a million records, you can typically expect to pay anywhere from $0.08 to $0.20 per match, depending on volume, plus $20 to $30 per thousand for up to 10 enhancement data points. Pricing can be lower for larger databases.
Several factors (volume, type of data points, etc.) go into price, so determine what information you need to calculate final cost. No sense paying for valueless data. Expect anywhere from 20 to 50 percent of records to be matched. This is an efficient way to add a lot of potential value to your database if the cost makes sense for your business.
Why Reverse Append?
On the surface, investing over $100 per thousand may not make sense, especially if you send email now and take in only $5 per thousand. After discussing this with three vendors -- Equifax, infoUSA, and Omni Point Marketing -- the following justifications emerged for at least testing:
Effective CPM may increase, perhaps two to four times as much as now, because you'll email less frequently to a highly targeted group. Response rates should rise due to better targeting.
Obtaining postal addresses from the reverse append process means you can test direct mail. Additional revenue from mail promotions make the proposition more attractive. You may have direct mail list rental potential.
Lifetime value of a customer responding to a personalized, targeted offer may be greater than those responding to mass mailings.
If you sell a wide variety of products, reverse append is worth testing. If you have one or only a few products, it doesn't make sense. In either case, now that you know the value of data points, ask for relevant ones whenever and wherever you collect email addresses.
Information to Collect
How can you enhance your email database with reverse email append? In addition to adding first and last name, there are two major categories of additional information:
Basic demographics: Home ownership (own vs. rent), household income, number of credit cards, gender, education, marital status, age, presence and ages of children, occupation, and geographical area.
Lifestyles/interests: Gardening, shopping, wildlife, frequent flyer, travel, investing, books, fishing, gambling, gourmet cooking, wine, tennis, consumer electronics (VCR, CD, PC, etc.) ownership, needlework, pets, self-improvement, politics, and many more.
For a detailed list of the kind of data you can append to your file, see a sample report here. The level of detail is incredible -- Omni Point has no less than 30 different types of vehicle ownership information and over 30 data elements on the homes people own. You can add people who own RVs or have fireplaces.
Using the Enhanced Data
There are a handful of ways to use enhanced data:
First name: Personalize messages, both in the subject line and message body.
Gender: Create different offers targeting men and women.
Children: Sell to parents or slant copy toward them.
Marital status: Segment between singles and married couples.
That brings us to the lifestyles and interests category, where most of the data points lie.
Depending on what you sell, you can enhance your database with specific information. Here are a few ways to use this valuable information:
Knowing which people in your database enjoy cruises rather than foreign travel permits tailoring offers accordingly.
Want to reach bowlers, photographers, stamp collectors? No problem. These and many more selections are available.
Sell telecom services? Identify people who make frequent calls overseas by country called.
If you sell investment services or publish a newsletter, you can identify people based on the number of trades they make during a specific period.
Combine data points for extra mileage. For example, add a high household income to presence of children to promote a family cruise.
On the B2B side, according to infoUSA, you can enhance data with standard industrial classification (SIC) codes, company size, sales volume, number of employees, and lots more.
In coming months and years, enhancing your email database will be one of the most important things you can do to grow your business. You'll be able to mail smarter and generate more revenue.
for best reverse appending results use trusted appending partner acquirelists services, they deliver what they promise.
It may sound paradoxical, but it's true. An additional consideration is decreasing unsubscribe rates. Judging from responses to previous columns on database segmenting, more education is warranted in this area.
It's time you, or someone in your company, become the chief slice-and-dice officer, the person responsible for analyzing your database and figuring out how to carve it into meaningful subsets with higher response rates than the list as a whole. The primary tools at the Slicer/Dicer's disposal are reverse email appending and data enhancement.
Top-Level View
Here's how it works: Send your email database to one of many companies with gargantuan databases loaded with data from numerous sources. The company matches your email and/or postal addresses against its addresses. When there's a match, it adds information to your records. You get back data-enriched records you can use in e-marketing efforts, both consumer and business-to-business (B2B). It's called reverse append/data enhancement.
As you may know, reverse appending is a common practice in direct mail. In the email universe, some believe reverse appending is as unethical as appending email addresses to a postal database (inadvisable for a variety of reasons).
In this day of existing and pending legislation, the best approach is to request permission to email offers you feel are appropriate, based on data you've appended. With permission, you're on the right side of the issue.
Fees for reverse append usually apply only to matching records. For databases between 500,000 and a million records, you can typically expect to pay anywhere from $0.08 to $0.20 per match, depending on volume, plus $20 to $30 per thousand for up to 10 enhancement data points. Pricing can be lower for larger databases.
Several factors (volume, type of data points, etc.) go into price, so determine what information you need to calculate final cost. No sense paying for valueless data. Expect anywhere from 20 to 50 percent of records to be matched. This is an efficient way to add a lot of potential value to your database if the cost makes sense for your business.
Why Reverse Append?
On the surface, investing over $100 per thousand may not make sense, especially if you send email now and take in only $5 per thousand. After discussing this with three vendors -- Equifax, infoUSA, and Omni Point Marketing -- the following justifications emerged for at least testing:
Effective CPM may increase, perhaps two to four times as much as now, because you'll email less frequently to a highly targeted group. Response rates should rise due to better targeting.
Obtaining postal addresses from the reverse append process means you can test direct mail. Additional revenue from mail promotions make the proposition more attractive. You may have direct mail list rental potential.
Lifetime value of a customer responding to a personalized, targeted offer may be greater than those responding to mass mailings.
If you sell a wide variety of products, reverse append is worth testing. If you have one or only a few products, it doesn't make sense. In either case, now that you know the value of data points, ask for relevant ones whenever and wherever you collect email addresses.
Information to Collect
How can you enhance your email database with reverse email append? In addition to adding first and last name, there are two major categories of additional information:
Basic demographics: Home ownership (own vs. rent), household income, number of credit cards, gender, education, marital status, age, presence and ages of children, occupation, and geographical area.
Lifestyles/interests: Gardening, shopping, wildlife, frequent flyer, travel, investing, books, fishing, gambling, gourmet cooking, wine, tennis, consumer electronics (VCR, CD, PC, etc.) ownership, needlework, pets, self-improvement, politics, and many more.
For a detailed list of the kind of data you can append to your file, see a sample report here. The level of detail is incredible -- Omni Point has no less than 30 different types of vehicle ownership information and over 30 data elements on the homes people own. You can add people who own RVs or have fireplaces.
Using the Enhanced Data
There are a handful of ways to use enhanced data:
First name: Personalize messages, both in the subject line and message body.
Gender: Create different offers targeting men and women.
Children: Sell to parents or slant copy toward them.
Marital status: Segment between singles and married couples.
That brings us to the lifestyles and interests category, where most of the data points lie.
Depending on what you sell, you can enhance your database with specific information. Here are a few ways to use this valuable information:
Knowing which people in your database enjoy cruises rather than foreign travel permits tailoring offers accordingly.
Want to reach bowlers, photographers, stamp collectors? No problem. These and many more selections are available.
Sell telecom services? Identify people who make frequent calls overseas by country called.
If you sell investment services or publish a newsletter, you can identify people based on the number of trades they make during a specific period.
Combine data points for extra mileage. For example, add a high household income to presence of children to promote a family cruise.
On the B2B side, according to infoUSA, you can enhance data with standard industrial classification (SIC) codes, company size, sales volume, number of employees, and lots more.
In coming months and years, enhancing your email database will be one of the most important things you can do to grow your business. You'll be able to mail smarter and generate more revenue.
for best reverse appending results use trusted appending partner acquirelists services, they deliver what they promise.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Guide to B2B Pay Per Click Best Practices for Online Lead Generation
B2B companies often have a lot invested in their websites, but still aren’t effectively using them in the pay-per-click marketplace. The Forrester's Marketing Effectiveness Survey, from Q2 of 2006, reported that only 59% of B2B companies surveyed are using search engine marketing. And while B-to-C marketers use 35 to 60% of their online spend to paid search, B-to-B companies only devote 20 to 45% of their online budget to search ads.
Pay per click marketing is an important source of potential leads for business-to-business companies because search engines are the #1 starting place for prospects as they enter their buying process – more so than the a vertical directory or industry portal that you’re so familiar with. For many companies, pay per click search engine marketing allows them to compete against their larger competitors on a much more level playing field. It’s also an essential way to educate, interact, and engage potential customers in a ‘pull’ environment.
Take advantage of these tips and tricks to get the most out of your B2B pay per click campaigns.
Steps:
1. Start with the best possible offer
2. Send traffic to the right place to increase leads at no extra cost
3. Choose the right source of traffic for your business
4. Focus your ad copy around the offer
5. Select your keywords wisely
6. Don’t forget to measure results
Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done
Never send traffic to your home page
Most B2C marketers have learned this lesson, and there have certainly been enough studies to prove the point, but approximately 75% of B2B companies still send search traffic to their home page instead of a relevant landing page. I recommend: Stop doing this, and you’ll likely see an immediate ROI improvement. A 2004 study from AtlasOnePoint suggested that the average B2B home page had a 6.3% conversion rate from PPC traffic, compared to a keyword relevant landing page with a 9.3% conversion rate.
Start with optimizing your offer
So much of the focus these days is on the nitty gritty aspects of PPC management, but we forget that in order for a customer to be willing to provide his or her personal information to your business, you have to provide a pretty good incentive. Common marketing collateral includes white papers, webinars, and demos, with white papers being the preferred reading material of 71% of B2B researchers. I recommend: Make sure to test offers against each other on the same advertising channel, since different offers may appeal to different audiences. KnowledgeStorm also has a great article on B2B content preferences to help you optimize your offerings (registration required).
Optimize your landing page to increase leads at no extra cost
Now that you’ve chosen the right offer, make sure your landing page doesn’t stand in the way of people converting. Keep your registration form as short as possible, since each additional field adds friction to the page. Remove excess navigation, and keep the page focused on a single goal with a prominent call to action. Test short copy vs. long copy. Headlines, images, and color are other top priorities for testing. I recommend: Landing page optimization is a huge topic which can provide excellent results with no additional marketing costs.
Optimize your page using these top tips from MarketingExperiments. If you have buy-in from the IT staff, you can get amazing results by using Google’s Website Optimizer tool to automate landing page testing.
Choose the right search engines
Your campaigns can only be as good as the traffic they solicit. 65% of B2B buyers source off a search engine when they are developing awareness at the beginning of their purchase cycle, so it’s important to appear in these results. Google is the preferred engine for 77% of B2B buyers, so it’s a must have. Yahoo may be a problem because they don’t have as effective of limitations in geography, so you’ll likely be paying for international leads. I recommend: You’ll find these great stats at SearchEngineWatch. Plus, don’t forget to look into the niche search engines and vertical directories which focus on business customers. See my other guide to B2B search engines for a good list.
Focus your ad copy around your offer
While flashy copy will entice the searcher to click, don’t forget your goal is to convert that visitor into a lead. Focusing at least one line of your ad copy on the offer will increase the relevancy of your page for those who click through. Doing so with a call to action also helps to prep the prospective customer for the action you want them to take. Don’t forget that the search engines will bold a word in your ad copy if it matches with the search query, so relevancy is key. Other top tips: Numbers help quantify your benefits, don’t hesitate to try out the word ‘free’ in lead gen campaigns, questions as titles create interest in your offer. I recommend: This is another area with lots of best practices and studies already done for you. Use the information to your benefit, and you’ll start out ahead of the game.
See these articles: MarketingExperiments' PPC Ad Copy Tested and ClickZ's Part 1 and Part 2 on PPC Copywriting Strategies.
Select your keywords wisely
Keywords in your pay per click campaign, are the equivalent of the demographic selections in your direct marketing lists. They shouldn’t be chosen without giving the task a little forethought. The most common mistake is to use too few keywords, which means your competition (and thus CPC) will be stiff. That’s no place to be if you’re just starting out and not using professional management. There’s no real rule of thumb, but I suggest aiming for a minimum of 500 keywords. I recommend: Review my guide on Negative Keywords, another essential part of keyword research.
Don’t forget to measure your results
Yes, it will take you longer to launch if you have to get your IT department involved, but it is essential to have the tracking data from the start. I know you have other priority things on you plate, which is why this gets pushed to the side time and time again. But having statistics for your campaigns will help you make future budgeting decisions. And since PPC is typically a high ROI area of marketing, you can get great stats to back up the program (and your hard work) in the future. I recommend: Google Analytics is one of the easiest to implement, but since it’s separate from the search engine accounts, it’s also easy to ignore the data. If you want the lowest common denominator, go with the conversion tracking systems built into the pay per click search engines. Sure, once you’re doing more business, there are reasons to use other systems, but this is a simple and integrated way to start out.
For more info please visit www.acquirelists.net
Pay per click marketing is an important source of potential leads for business-to-business companies because search engines are the #1 starting place for prospects as they enter their buying process – more so than the a vertical directory or industry portal that you’re so familiar with. For many companies, pay per click search engine marketing allows them to compete against their larger competitors on a much more level playing field. It’s also an essential way to educate, interact, and engage potential customers in a ‘pull’ environment.
Take advantage of these tips and tricks to get the most out of your B2B pay per click campaigns.
Steps:
1. Start with the best possible offer
2. Send traffic to the right place to increase leads at no extra cost
3. Choose the right source of traffic for your business
4. Focus your ad copy around the offer
5. Select your keywords wisely
6. Don’t forget to measure results
Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done
Never send traffic to your home page
Most B2C marketers have learned this lesson, and there have certainly been enough studies to prove the point, but approximately 75% of B2B companies still send search traffic to their home page instead of a relevant landing page. I recommend: Stop doing this, and you’ll likely see an immediate ROI improvement. A 2004 study from AtlasOnePoint suggested that the average B2B home page had a 6.3% conversion rate from PPC traffic, compared to a keyword relevant landing page with a 9.3% conversion rate.
Start with optimizing your offer
So much of the focus these days is on the nitty gritty aspects of PPC management, but we forget that in order for a customer to be willing to provide his or her personal information to your business, you have to provide a pretty good incentive. Common marketing collateral includes white papers, webinars, and demos, with white papers being the preferred reading material of 71% of B2B researchers. I recommend: Make sure to test offers against each other on the same advertising channel, since different offers may appeal to different audiences. KnowledgeStorm also has a great article on B2B content preferences to help you optimize your offerings (registration required).
Optimize your landing page to increase leads at no extra cost
Now that you’ve chosen the right offer, make sure your landing page doesn’t stand in the way of people converting. Keep your registration form as short as possible, since each additional field adds friction to the page. Remove excess navigation, and keep the page focused on a single goal with a prominent call to action. Test short copy vs. long copy. Headlines, images, and color are other top priorities for testing. I recommend: Landing page optimization is a huge topic which can provide excellent results with no additional marketing costs.
Optimize your page using these top tips from MarketingExperiments. If you have buy-in from the IT staff, you can get amazing results by using Google’s Website Optimizer tool to automate landing page testing.
Choose the right search engines
Your campaigns can only be as good as the traffic they solicit. 65% of B2B buyers source off a search engine when they are developing awareness at the beginning of their purchase cycle, so it’s important to appear in these results. Google is the preferred engine for 77% of B2B buyers, so it’s a must have. Yahoo may be a problem because they don’t have as effective of limitations in geography, so you’ll likely be paying for international leads. I recommend: You’ll find these great stats at SearchEngineWatch. Plus, don’t forget to look into the niche search engines and vertical directories which focus on business customers. See my other guide to B2B search engines for a good list.
Focus your ad copy around your offer
While flashy copy will entice the searcher to click, don’t forget your goal is to convert that visitor into a lead. Focusing at least one line of your ad copy on the offer will increase the relevancy of your page for those who click through. Doing so with a call to action also helps to prep the prospective customer for the action you want them to take. Don’t forget that the search engines will bold a word in your ad copy if it matches with the search query, so relevancy is key. Other top tips: Numbers help quantify your benefits, don’t hesitate to try out the word ‘free’ in lead gen campaigns, questions as titles create interest in your offer. I recommend: This is another area with lots of best practices and studies already done for you. Use the information to your benefit, and you’ll start out ahead of the game.
See these articles: MarketingExperiments' PPC Ad Copy Tested and ClickZ's Part 1 and Part 2 on PPC Copywriting Strategies.
Select your keywords wisely
Keywords in your pay per click campaign, are the equivalent of the demographic selections in your direct marketing lists. They shouldn’t be chosen without giving the task a little forethought. The most common mistake is to use too few keywords, which means your competition (and thus CPC) will be stiff. That’s no place to be if you’re just starting out and not using professional management. There’s no real rule of thumb, but I suggest aiming for a minimum of 500 keywords. I recommend: Review my guide on Negative Keywords, another essential part of keyword research.
Don’t forget to measure your results
Yes, it will take you longer to launch if you have to get your IT department involved, but it is essential to have the tracking data from the start. I know you have other priority things on you plate, which is why this gets pushed to the side time and time again. But having statistics for your campaigns will help you make future budgeting decisions. And since PPC is typically a high ROI area of marketing, you can get great stats to back up the program (and your hard work) in the future. I recommend: Google Analytics is one of the easiest to implement, but since it’s separate from the search engine accounts, it’s also easy to ignore the data. If you want the lowest common denominator, go with the conversion tracking systems built into the pay per click search engines. Sure, once you’re doing more business, there are reasons to use other systems, but this is a simple and integrated way to start out.
For more info please visit www.acquirelists.net
Friday, August 10, 2007
Best Practices for E-Mail Opt-In?
A key aspect of any email program is the opt-in (registration) process. Experts debate what information should be captured during this process and how it should be used. The latest trend: Use profile centers to allow customers to opt in to the content they want to receive. That content is sent. No more, no less.
Great idea? I'm not so sure. Readers don't always know what they're missing. Relevancy is a moving target that can't be predicted.
Imagine This
It's Tuesday and you just got out of your weekly staff meeting. Your boss wants you to provide a POV on how wireless marketing will affect the business over the next two years. Problem is, the POV is due in a week. You don't have the slightest clue what to say.
Your first step is to go to the Internet. You hurriedly opt in to trusted brands and experts in the space. Lots of free research and white papers are waiting behind these registration forms and email opt-ins. You become a wireless expert. You open, click on, and read everything you receive. Your POV is done and ready to be turned in, when your boss pops in: "Looks like a change in focus. It's RSS now."
AARGGH! Back to the email registrations to become an RSS expert.
This change in perceived relevancy is equally applicable in our personal lives. Look at the person planning a tropical vacation. She switches to a ski-related destination at the last minute. As soon as she decides to switch, the best tropical vacation email content in the world simply goes unread.
Multiple Options
What's the answer? Rely on clients to change their preferences? Send unwanted content mixed with desired content? Ask poll questions inside the email? Or maybe devise propensity models to predict reader interests based on profile information?
I solicited some marketers for their advice on how they currently address this dilemma. Many looked at me as if I had six heads, but a few provided great insights. Here are some of the results:
Financial services. "We put three small partner ads in our emails every month and sell them as benefits of being email recipients. Every quarter, we track which types of offers do best and retain those while we test new partner offers. We don't personalize offers by customer, though."
Telecommunications. "We add in a section on one of our emails that's promoted as 'new offers.' If people click on those, we send an opt-in email invitation for that group's emails. It works well for us."
B2B high technology. "We change the main theme of our messages every month and lead with a story that we choose (kind of like a front-page news ad). This is followed by the customized selections our clients make."
Automotive. "We only send messages based on selected preferences, but every quarter we email the preference selections to our clients to confirm their interests."
Entertainment. "Are you kidding? We don't ask for content preferences. We send you what we feel is compelling for that time period."
B2B sales. "We tried asking people to opt in to business solutions -- and told them how many emails they would get about it -- and saw tremendous results in conversions. The problem was, once the deal was closed we didn't have a structure to cross-sell them."
What Should You Do?
There isn't yet enough research to back up any definitive best practice for the email opt-in experience or preference center usage. But look at your opt-in and profiling experience from a different vantage point to ensure it performs as it should.
Three questions to ask:
How much and what type of information do you request at opt-in? Is it enough to begin a dialogue with a client or prospect?
What strategy do you use to learn about other interests? How will you turn that into increased loyalty or sales?
When you realize your reader has stopped responding, how you do to reengage them with your brand?
Even if you don't review your opt-in process or preference center now, keep an eye on the topic. It's going to get quite a bit of attention.
Great idea? I'm not so sure. Readers don't always know what they're missing. Relevancy is a moving target that can't be predicted.
Imagine This
It's Tuesday and you just got out of your weekly staff meeting. Your boss wants you to provide a POV on how wireless marketing will affect the business over the next two years. Problem is, the POV is due in a week. You don't have the slightest clue what to say.
Your first step is to go to the Internet. You hurriedly opt in to trusted brands and experts in the space. Lots of free research and white papers are waiting behind these registration forms and email opt-ins. You become a wireless expert. You open, click on, and read everything you receive. Your POV is done and ready to be turned in, when your boss pops in: "Looks like a change in focus. It's RSS now."
AARGGH! Back to the email registrations to become an RSS expert.
This change in perceived relevancy is equally applicable in our personal lives. Look at the person planning a tropical vacation. She switches to a ski-related destination at the last minute. As soon as she decides to switch, the best tropical vacation email content in the world simply goes unread.
Multiple Options
What's the answer? Rely on clients to change their preferences? Send unwanted content mixed with desired content? Ask poll questions inside the email? Or maybe devise propensity models to predict reader interests based on profile information?
I solicited some marketers for their advice on how they currently address this dilemma. Many looked at me as if I had six heads, but a few provided great insights. Here are some of the results:
Financial services. "We put three small partner ads in our emails every month and sell them as benefits of being email recipients. Every quarter, we track which types of offers do best and retain those while we test new partner offers. We don't personalize offers by customer, though."
Telecommunications. "We add in a section on one of our emails that's promoted as 'new offers.' If people click on those, we send an opt-in email invitation for that group's emails. It works well for us."
B2B high technology. "We change the main theme of our messages every month and lead with a story that we choose (kind of like a front-page news ad). This is followed by the customized selections our clients make."
Automotive. "We only send messages based on selected preferences, but every quarter we email the preference selections to our clients to confirm their interests."
Entertainment. "Are you kidding? We don't ask for content preferences. We send you what we feel is compelling for that time period."
B2B sales. "We tried asking people to opt in to business solutions -- and told them how many emails they would get about it -- and saw tremendous results in conversions. The problem was, once the deal was closed we didn't have a structure to cross-sell them."
What Should You Do?
There isn't yet enough research to back up any definitive best practice for the email opt-in experience or preference center usage. But look at your opt-in and profiling experience from a different vantage point to ensure it performs as it should.
Three questions to ask:
How much and what type of information do you request at opt-in? Is it enough to begin a dialogue with a client or prospect?
What strategy do you use to learn about other interests? How will you turn that into increased loyalty or sales?
When you realize your reader has stopped responding, how you do to reengage them with your brand?
Even if you don't review your opt-in process or preference center now, keep an eye on the topic. It's going to get quite a bit of attention.
E-Mail Append: Opt-In or -Out?
If you do email marketing, chances are you've been approached by a vendor offering email append services. For those unfamiliar with email address appending, The Direct Marketing Association's (DMA's) definition:
E-mail address appending is the process of adding a consumer's email address to that consumer's record. The email address is obtained by matching those records from the marketer's database against a third-party database to produce a corresponding email address.A few years ago, I wrote a column on email appending. It was a hot topic at the time, and it remains one. I just helped a client evaluate proposals from some email append vendors and was surprised how little had changed from a few years ago.
How appends are marketed has always been one of my pet peeves. The focus is on quantity, not quality. Vendors will quote "match rates," the number of new email addresses you'll get. But they don't talk about how those email addresses will perform, in other words, their quality.
Get explicit opt-in from your appended email addresses. Opt-in assures the people you're sending to want to hear from you and hence boosts list quality. This is a dramatic departure from the opt-out process most append vendors adhere to, in which they assume anyone who doesn't respond wants to hear from you.
Most vendors have different pricing structures for opt-in and -out. Opt-out addresses can cost $0.06 to $0.20 per email address, while opt-ins often run $2.50 to $4.00 per address. The work involved for the append vendor is the same for opt-in and opt-out; the difference is how many email addresses you walk away with and what level of permission you receive from them. An opt-in process provides fewer names with a higher permission level; an opt-out process returns more names with a lower permission level.
It's interesting to see the rates vendors quote. On an opt-out process, most state up to 25 percent of the gross email addresses they match will opt out. For an opt-in process, the standard quote is 2 percent or less will opt in. If these hold true and the initial gross match returns 1 million email addresses, an opt-out process will net at least 750,000 addresses; an opt-in process would net only 20,000.
At $0.20 per name, the appended opt-out list of 750,000 will cost you $150,000; the 20,000 appended opt-in names, at $4.00 per name, would cost $80,000. This is where the quantity argument kicks into high gear. Sure, you pay more than twice as much for opt-out names, but you get more than 30 times as many names.
But wait. Consider how they may perform. If the append vendor is right and only about 2 percent of the gross list will be interested enough to respond to your opt-in, with the rest not responding at all, what makes you think future sends to this list will be any different? Shouldn't we expect that 2 percent to be responsive in the future -- and the other 98 percent to be non-responsive? You can talk about different offers, different creative, and so forth, but the list is a critical factor in any email campaign's success. Even if they're your current customers, they won't necessarily respond to your email.
And there's a cost to each send. If you pay a $5 CPM (define) to your email service provider, mailing the list of 20,000 opt-in email addresses will cost $100; the opt-out list will cost $3,750. A big difference, especially if we assume 98 percent of the large list will be non-responsive. You'd need to get a much larger revenue stream out of the larger list to break even, which is unlikely since the same core of 20,000 are your best bets for response in both cases.
I've seen appended email addresses not respond at all for too many clients. We identify a list segment that's performing poorly or not responding at all, and research shows they're appended names. It doesn't matter whether they're your customers, there's still a good chance they won't respond if they don't opt in.
Using this reasoning, the 20,000 opt-in email addresses are a far better value than the 750,000 opt-out email addresses. But even if you choose the opt-in list, I'm not sure appending makes sense.
That $80,000 isn't an insignificant amount of money. There are other ways to get email addresses. How much would a direct mail postcard to your house list cost? Or a note inviting people to opt in added to a bill, print newsletter, or other direct mail piece you're already sending? Appending isn't the only game in town. It's important to look at other ways to get the email addresses... and the opt-ins. Rarely is appending the most cost-effective way to go.
Why is appending still so popular? It's viewed as a quick fix, a way to instantly start an email marketing program. But as with many quick fixes, something's lost in the process. In this case, it's the response. And an email marketing program without significant return on investment is just an additional expense for your organization.
For more information please visit www.acquirelists.net
E-mail address appending is the process of adding a consumer's email address to that consumer's record. The email address is obtained by matching those records from the marketer's database against a third-party database to produce a corresponding email address.A few years ago, I wrote a column on email appending. It was a hot topic at the time, and it remains one. I just helped a client evaluate proposals from some email append vendors and was surprised how little had changed from a few years ago.
How appends are marketed has always been one of my pet peeves. The focus is on quantity, not quality. Vendors will quote "match rates," the number of new email addresses you'll get. But they don't talk about how those email addresses will perform, in other words, their quality.
Get explicit opt-in from your appended email addresses. Opt-in assures the people you're sending to want to hear from you and hence boosts list quality. This is a dramatic departure from the opt-out process most append vendors adhere to, in which they assume anyone who doesn't respond wants to hear from you.
Most vendors have different pricing structures for opt-in and -out. Opt-out addresses can cost $0.06 to $0.20 per email address, while opt-ins often run $2.50 to $4.00 per address. The work involved for the append vendor is the same for opt-in and opt-out; the difference is how many email addresses you walk away with and what level of permission you receive from them. An opt-in process provides fewer names with a higher permission level; an opt-out process returns more names with a lower permission level.
It's interesting to see the rates vendors quote. On an opt-out process, most state up to 25 percent of the gross email addresses they match will opt out. For an opt-in process, the standard quote is 2 percent or less will opt in. If these hold true and the initial gross match returns 1 million email addresses, an opt-out process will net at least 750,000 addresses; an opt-in process would net only 20,000.
At $0.20 per name, the appended opt-out list of 750,000 will cost you $150,000; the 20,000 appended opt-in names, at $4.00 per name, would cost $80,000. This is where the quantity argument kicks into high gear. Sure, you pay more than twice as much for opt-out names, but you get more than 30 times as many names.
But wait. Consider how they may perform. If the append vendor is right and only about 2 percent of the gross list will be interested enough to respond to your opt-in, with the rest not responding at all, what makes you think future sends to this list will be any different? Shouldn't we expect that 2 percent to be responsive in the future -- and the other 98 percent to be non-responsive? You can talk about different offers, different creative, and so forth, but the list is a critical factor in any email campaign's success. Even if they're your current customers, they won't necessarily respond to your email.
And there's a cost to each send. If you pay a $5 CPM (define) to your email service provider, mailing the list of 20,000 opt-in email addresses will cost $100; the opt-out list will cost $3,750. A big difference, especially if we assume 98 percent of the large list will be non-responsive. You'd need to get a much larger revenue stream out of the larger list to break even, which is unlikely since the same core of 20,000 are your best bets for response in both cases.
I've seen appended email addresses not respond at all for too many clients. We identify a list segment that's performing poorly or not responding at all, and research shows they're appended names. It doesn't matter whether they're your customers, there's still a good chance they won't respond if they don't opt in.
Using this reasoning, the 20,000 opt-in email addresses are a far better value than the 750,000 opt-out email addresses. But even if you choose the opt-in list, I'm not sure appending makes sense.
That $80,000 isn't an insignificant amount of money. There are other ways to get email addresses. How much would a direct mail postcard to your house list cost? Or a note inviting people to opt in added to a bill, print newsletter, or other direct mail piece you're already sending? Appending isn't the only game in town. It's important to look at other ways to get the email addresses... and the opt-ins. Rarely is appending the most cost-effective way to go.
Why is appending still so popular? It's viewed as a quick fix, a way to instantly start an email marketing program. But as with many quick fixes, something's lost in the process. In this case, it's the response. And an email marketing program without significant return on investment is just an additional expense for your organization.
For more information please visit www.acquirelists.net
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