Email appending and marketing cost effectiveness. 

At a time when businesses are still trying to reduce costs, anything that appears unnecessary can easily be cut from the marketing budget. This isn’t always the best move; all too often an area that may not be considered as core activity could actually save you money. By way of example, appending email addresses can reduce marketing costs which in turn can reduce your overall spend on marketing.

Why use email marketing?

Many businesses still send marketing literature to clients and prospects through the post. This is a slower and more expensive method than using email marketing. Sending direct mail via email means you don’t need to take into account the cost of printing.

Email marketing can have better response rates than traditional direct mail. It can also offer faster response times, as proAppending email addresses can reduce marketing costsspects can get in touch as soon as they open the email. If the addresses are correct on your marketing list, the literature will get to the correct person, rather than running the risk of a receptionist or ‘gate keeper’ opening the post and filing it away.

Sending your marketing information by email is also considerably cheaper than using the postal service. If you take an average piece of direct mail, it will cost £1 to send through the post and this doesn’t even take into account the cost of printing the material. On the other hand, sending the literature via email will cost an average of 1p per piece. This is a substantial saving – appending email addresses can reduce marketing costs by as much as 99%

If you plan to start using email, you will need to determine whether you have the correct addresses for your full list of contacts. This doesn’t mean that the existing list is useless or that you will need to start from scratch. However, calling all the contacts yourself to confirm their email addresses can be extremely time consuming and thus costly. This is where email appending can help.

How cost effective is email appending?

When you consider the long term outlook for your business, using an email appending service is almost invariably worthwhile. You will need to look at the overall costs of using email appending and sending marketing literature online compared with the on-going price of printing direct mail pieces and sending them through the post.

Every email address that you require appending it will cost an average of 40p. This is a one-off cost and you can then use the address as many times as you require, spreading the cost of appending over numerous subsequent communications. Email appending enables you to build and continuously improve your marketing contact database. In turn, this will improve response rates and increase sales.

If you have a marketing list that requires appending, it is usually possible to find addresses for around 55% of the contacts.When you consider all the associated costs, this is a far more cost effective measure than traditional approaches.

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Creating emails your customers will want to receive

Why do we target customers with emails? The ruthless answer is to make more sales and therefore more money. Honest perhaps, but writing emails with this aim alone in mind will not achieve the desired outcome. Customers have choices, they are wise and knowledgeable. Unless your offer is something exceptional, customers demand more from you before they are willing to part with any cash. Thus the aim of email communications should be to build up trust and rapport in order to drive revenue.

Setting up a robust email strategy is fairly straightforward. Including different types of email in your marketing portfolio allows you to maintain contact with subscribers without inundating them. Recipients have different tolerance levels for different types of emails. The following, are key guidelines on the three types of email you want to be sending and how frequently to send them.

1.        Welcome email (automated)Creating emails your customers will want to receive

Every time you a new subscriber registers, send a warm, friendly welcome message. This is the ideal time to set expectations relating to email content and frequency. For example, let them know they will receive a monthly newsletter, or weekly tips. Remember to append as much information about your subscriber as possible to ensure your emails are effective.

Cement the new relationship with a welcome offer in the form of a discount, free download or invitation. Inform your new subscriber that you often send out `subscriber only` offers (as long as this is true) and they are then more likely to open future emails.

2.        Newsletters

Create a template for your newsletters, with identifiable sections and be concise. The aim of a newsletter is to build rapport. You could include sections on company news; educational downloads; events and webinars; special offers; an update on the charity work your company supports and so forth. Guide your readers to engage with a call to action for each section. For example, `read more about…`, `register now for…`. Once a month is a good level of frequency for newsletters.

3.        Promotional emails

These emails compete with hundreds of other sales emails, so the feeling of loyalty you create in your subscriber is of utmost importance. Promotional emails should concentrate on one topic and have one call to action. Make sure that you are offering something new and make it compelling, it is so important to be creating emails your customers will want to receive. Sending promotional emails once or twice a month is good practice. You can segment your database and create different emails according to your subscribers` preferences.

Two essential items to consider when devising your email strategy are images and data. Choose images that are eye-catching and relevant to your message. Ensure you have a quality database. This is critical to email success so utilise cleansing and appending services to achieve this.

Always give your readers something of genuine value and be consistent in your style and timing. Adhere to these guidelines and you can confidently build up an engaged and loyal set of subscribers.

Increase Conversation Rates

The tactics game: increase conversion rates from email marketingIncrease Conversation Rates

Data is key. Analyse it, optimise it and use its latent energy to power the content of your emails. Create an enjoyable journey that will lead customers straight to your door. The following is a brief overview of some proven tactics to increase conversation rates email marketing:

1.        Quality data

Structure your database and continuously update and hone your data. Utilise data appending and cleaning services as part of a regular maintenance program.

2.        Study trends

Take a look at the available information on social media sites to understand what your target audience is talking about, what their concerns are and what types of questions they are asking.

3.        Understand the marketing landscape

The information age has allowed businesses and individuals to research a product or solution themselves, before engaging in a sales conversation with you. Many will have developed a preference. It is essential that you provide the right type of email content at the right time.

In B2B marketing, you may be talking to more than one person and, in practice, will want to talk to at least three: the user, the influencer, the decision maker. Data appending can also provide alternative contacts within your target business.

4.        Research – creating persona

This is where you reap the rewards of a well-managed and maintained database. Know who you are talking to. Create a one page bio for each persona. Gather information around demographics, goals and objectives (work and personal), how you can help them and typical objections they may have towards your solution or product. Counteract these objections even before your customer has voiced them. Really understand who you are engaging with and tailor your email content accordingly. A well designed database will collate much of this information and regular data matching will fill in the gaps.

5.        The buying cycle / customer journey

If you understand your customer’s buying cycle then you can identify key points at which to interact and provide the right information to help them along their journey. Research has shown that 65% of customers, state that the winning vendor’s marketing content had a significant impact on their final decision.

6.        Automation

Set up some great automated emails. An obvious one is to send a welcome email to a new customer or potential new customer who has just signed up on your website. Automated emails appear far more personal as they have been directly triggered by customer action.

7.        Create content – write for conversion

Give your audience the information they want. Even if you think the features of your product or solution are fabulous, your audience will not be interested unless there is a benefit relevant to them. Change each feature into an advantage. Then tell your audience what the ultimate benefit to them really is.

8.        Analyse and Optimise

“Study the past if you would define the future” Confucius. Look at what your data is telling you and respond appropriately, and you will increase conversation rates. Managing and maintaining quality data is king!

The Importance Of Data

Taming the Data Diva

The Importance Of DataIs data like the genes we were born with? We know it’s important and we all have it, but do we really understand how it works? Striving for those perfect returns, we create stunning and strong marketing campaigns that we just know will change the world, if only our customers saw them.

The reality is that the make-up of our data determines the outcome of every project, so the importance of data must be understood in order to use it to its full potential. If your data has gone bad then so too, will your beautiful campaign. However, unlike our genes, we have the capacity to alter our data, those basic and fundamental information files. Firstly, quality is better than quantity. Secondly, you have to understand the needs of data. Master the details of great data care and reap the rewards in the form of that often elusive increased ROI.

Why?

The Operational costs of working from bad records are immense, this is why you cannot underestimate the importance of data. If you have a budget to acquire lead data, then consider the cost-effectiveness of maintaining the integrity of your own database verses buying data of unknown quality.

How?

Audit and clean, continuously. Once your database is manageable it is easier to maintain. Follow the best practice techniques below:

1.        Communication

Listen when your data talks to you. If an email address hasn’t registered an open for 6 months or more, consider removing it from your database.

2.        Standardisation

Review the structure of your database. Why do you enter data the way you do? Form some rules for data entry and then create a DES (Data Entry System) document for everyone to follow. For example, mobile numbers and land line numbers require separate columns so an SMS campaign can be easily actioned.

3.        De-Duplication

Ensure this is handled at the point of data entry by looking for matches. Also run a data cleansing process once a month to catch any duplicates which may have slipped through with any changes in any of the data fields.

4.        Capture and hygiene

As soon as a new data record reaches your database, immediately append to it any other relevant information from other sources. This enables you to build up a profile of your customer.

5.        Append

Regularly append your entire database through an appending service provider. Not only will this ensure that your own data is up to date; it can also provide you with new contacts within companies where you already have at least one contact.

6.        Regular maintenance

From the very second it is entered, data begins a process of degradation. Remember, things change: people change jobs; people create and use new email addresses; duplicate files are created as postal addresses change and so on.

You need to consider your data as a high maintenance diva. Pamper to its every whim and then sit back and enjoy the show!