E-mail Lists and Retention Efforts

November 27, 2009 by Tim
Filed under: Email Lists

The most expensive part of your direct marketing e-mail budget is spent on retention efforts (acquiring new prospects). In fact, in June Forester Research determined that 70% of our budget is spend on retention efforts.

This is shocking, when understanding basic direct marketing math that most marketers can spend up to 10 times more money finding new prospects than taking care of the customers that they already have.

Acquisition efforts by e-mail efforts can be a strong tool for lead generation. You need to maximize your marketing budget dollars by treating you email acquisition lists the same way you would with direct mail or cold calling leads.

Testing narrow segments of your or e-mail marketing lists will allow you to match up buying cycles, age or other demographic information used for micro-targeting your more focused e-mail lists.

You will get better results when you bring in a Web or profile data by bringing in niche targeted content like teenagers purchasing video games online from e-bay. A list where someone has opted-in to receive a special report or newsletter from a Website online.

Marketing today is about creating relationships rather than the hard sell or jumping straight into the offer, this will avoid the obvious mistakes sales people make when cold-calling prospects. Another mistake is not telling the prospect the source of the e-mail, if they have opted in to a newsletter or purchased something in the past they would be better prospects than buying a list cold without building the relationship.

Identify the source of the e-mail for you can personalize your message. For example; it was great to meet you at the trade show you attended or the Website that you logged on to. A new recipient would get a totally different e-mail than someone dropping their card into a box during the trade show. If this prospect met someone in your organization the message would be more personalized and warmer than just an e-mail opt-in from a niche Website.

Knowing how to promote a successful Webinar or online seminar is one
of the best ways to generate highly qualified sales leads or educate and up sell existing customers. You not only send e-mail invitation to current customers asking for referrals but you also invite prospective customers through targeted e-mail lists.

When you write your marketing plan be sure to:

Define objectives
It sounds obvious, but you really need to think about what you are trying to do with a Webinar, so that you can measure your success and ROI after the fact. Is your marketing objective;

To acquire leads and bring in new sales?
To educate existing customers on a new product/service?
To obtain research or feedback on an existing offer?

If you are looking to acquire leads,

Click Here for list inquiry!>

one effective approach is to focus on third party opt-in email list rentals. If you are increasing awareness of a new product or doing research among existing customers, then conducting a permission-based internal email campaign could be the most efficient use of your resources. Free demonstration and trial use: 2009 Inc. 500 Winner Discover Why MegaMeeting.com was voted The #1 Video & Web Conferencing Company on the 2009 Inc 500 List!

Link to this page