While dissecting a client’s recent e-mail campaign analytics, the topic of list best practices came into play. The client in this scenario had pretty good overall e-mail results, but the unsubscribe and complaint rates were noticeably high. This prompted us to question the client’s list-acquisition behavior: How and where were they getting their contacts? How had they previously communicated with these prospects? When did they acquire these contacts?
As it turns out, the client was using legitimate, commonly used practices to acquire these addresses – advertising on third-party sites and asking those interested in the company’s products to manually opt in, for example. So what’s the problem?
After some digging, we discovered it probably has to do with a lack of consistent communication and additional opt-in confirmation – something many marketers are guilty of. In a day and age where it isn’t unusual for people – particularly business decision-makers – to receive hundreds of e-mails per day, dotting your I’s and crossing your T’s is crucial. But what exactly does that mean? Let’s go back to the client example …
Not surprisingly, the list with the most success was the one that contained names of people who proactively sought information on the company very recently. In other words, they saw the company’s ad or online listing and signed up to receive more information within the last couple weeks, so the opt -in was presumably fresh in their minds.
On the other hand, the list with the most problems came from prospects who showed interest in the company’s products on a third-party site – from as long as three years ago. Without consistent communication and reminders that they had opted in to receiving these communications, it’s no wonder that a disproportionately high number of people would mark an e-mail from the company as spam.
So what’s an e-marketer to do?
When Albert Einstein said, “Bureaucracy is the death of all sound work,” it was more than a flash of genius – he was right.
The buzz surrounding social media marketing has become deafening – and it seems that marketers may be tuning out.
Many companies say they are focused on customers, but they aren’t walking the walk, according to a 2009 study from Forrester Research. While 45 percent of marketers surveyed said their marketing activities are focused on customers, only one-third say they have strategic ways of delivering the right messages to the right customers. Even more telling: Only 11 percent said customer engagement was an important aspect of their marketing communications.
