Email Marketing Campaigns

Direct marketing email campaigns are a great way to engage current customers, but they can also be helpful in recruiting new ones.  Due to legal constraints it can be difficult and costly to purchase a list of email addresses of your target market, though a simple cost effective work around is to append email addresses to a mailing list or to rent a list of email addresses. The way email address appending or e-appending works is that the name and mailing address of a mailing list is matched to databases of email addresses that have opted in to recieve marketing emails.  The match rate is typically about 20% but can depend on the quality of the mailing list and availability of email addresses. 

 Once you have an email list the next step will be to design an attractive email.  Most notably you want your subject line to be enticing so that your target audience opens the email.  You will also want to avoid wording that makes emails sound like spam, so it is not flagged by spam blockers.  A good rule to follow is that your email should add value for your target audience and be something that they will want to open.

  You should use a trusted server to send out these emails.  Using your own server to send out marketing email campaigns could get your server blacklisted as sending spam.  Additionally online platforms like Constant Contact and MailChimp often prohibit using purchase lists on their platforms.

One effective way to increase open rates would be to send a direct mail piece to the address either right before or after the email campaign.  With USPS tracking software it is possible to have an email triggered by the delivery of a direct mail piece.  This mutli-channel marketing approach will help the end user recognize your brand and increase the likelihood that they will open your email or read you direct mail piece.

Once the email is opened it is important to ensure that the offer is easy to act on.  Links should be easily accessible and take the end user directly to a web address where they can act on the offer presented.  Personalized landing pages are often helpful in aiding the target audience to act on the offer.  It is also important that links are mobile friendly because the majority of respondents will read the email on their phone or tablet. 

Email marketing can be an effective tool to drive new business or communicate with your existing clients, but with so many emails and spam blockers emails can often be overlooked.  Ensure your communication reaches your target audience ensure that the email address you are using have opted into receiving marketing emails and you are sending the email from a trusted server.  Additionally, using a multi-channel approach and making it easy for your audience to act on the offer.

Email Address Lists

Selecting the right target audience for an e-mail campaign is crucial for ROI, but it is also important to avoid legal implications.  Ultimately you want to send relevant emails that will be useful to recipients, whether this be a coupon or relevant information that will help the recipient.  For email campaigns the best list to use would be a customer opt in list where current customers have opted in to receive emails from your organization.  If you have not developed this list or you would like to market to new clients then there are a few options. 

The first option is to append email addresses to a current mailing list.  This can be done with a mailing list you may already have or we can help you purchase a new mailing list.  If you elect to purchase a new mailing list you can include the specific demographics that you would like to target ensuring that your email is relevant to your audience.  Once we have the mailing list we will use the information in the list to find email addresses from various sources who have agreed to receive marketing emails.  This can be done with both consumer and business lists.  Usually we are able to find email addresses for 10-15% of the addresses on the list, but this varies greatly from list to list.  You will then own the list of emails and can use them as many times as you would like.  We can also setup the email campaign for you with the correct formatting and provide analytics or you could create your own email. If you use these email addresses yourself be sure to include opt out options and to regularly update the list, removing all email addresses that have opted out.

The other option is to rent a list.  The way this works is that you will select a demographic you would like to target and provide Action Mail with an html version of your email.  You will also need to provide seed names as well as the time and date when you would like to have the email sent.  We will setup your campaign and send out the email blast.  We will also provide you with analytics associated with the blast.  This option is ideal for email campaigns looking to send out one or two emails to a specific demographic.

Acquiring a list of emails is a tricky task, as there a quite a few legal implications. Contact us to learn more about list acquisition and how to best develop your next email campaign.