Want Email Solutions? Only Email People Who Want to Hear From You
It might be 2012 but there are still marketers emailing like it’s 1999.
Yes, the quantity over quality approach to building in-house email lists is still going strong. I know, because I am perusing the emails in my inbox and I see plenty from companies who added my name to their list without asking. These are companies I purchased from as a consumer, or downloaded a whitepaper from as an email marketing consultant. In either case, they are not companies I wanted to hear from again.
By adding my name—and countless others—to their list without outright permission to do so, they are building a list focused on quantity. That kind of list will generally perform worse than a list focused on quality. Wholesale list building is hardly one of your best email solutions!
You want responses? You send email to people who said, “I want to hear from you.”
Remember: A quality list trumps a quantity list every time. Unless, of course, you’re giving away a million dollars to anyone who responds. That would get you an off-the-charts response rate, for sure! But it also might bankrupt your company.
If you want the best email solution for list building, don’t think you have to wait for people to come to you. You only need offer people the option when they are doing a transaction with you (as opposed to default adding everyone to your list). If out of every 10 people who download your whitepaper, only one subscribes to your emails, that is one person who wants to hear from you…versus nine who don’t. To whom would you rather be marketing?
Offer an email signup as part of your checkout or registration process but do not automatically opt people into your list simply because of an interaction.
Seek out and find the people who want to be on your list. They are the ones who will respond. And they are alive and well in 2012!
About the Author: Sharon
