If your company is considering e-mail marketing to broaden your target customer base, you will eventually face the list question: Should I lease a professionally compiled list of people for an e-mail campaign?
If you want to reach more people (people who have "opted in" by giving their permission to be sent e-mails) and create more business, or if you don’t already have e-mail addresses for your customers, the answer is "yes." The next question is how to choose the best list and use it most effectively.
The cost of a leased list depends upon whether you want to reach consumers or business people. For consumers, costs range from $80 to $150 for 1,000 names (cost per thousand, or CPM). For business-to-business lists, costs are $190 to $450 CPM. Segmenting a list by demographic information such as gender, age, geographic area, etc., adds to the cost. Also, some companies add a deployment fee of $50 to $100 CPM and may also charge for reporting results from your campaign. Most leasing companies insist that you lease a minimum number of names, usually 1,500 to 5,000, and almost every company insists on prepayment in full before deploying your promotion.
A few companies now sell e-mail addresses, but the cost is prohibitive--about four times that of a leased list. If you structure your promotion correctly and give your e-mail recipients an effective opt-in choice, you can leverage the leased list to build a powerful database that you own and can use in the future without additional leasing costs.
"Opt-out" options are equally important and should be part of every promotion. When someone opts out, you should immediately and permanently remove them from the list; that is the responsible approach for any e-mail advertiser, and in some cases is legally required.
For list sources, first try trade journals, industry organizations to which you belong or trade associations. Start with familiar, industry-specific sources before going to other list providers. There are also large opt-in companies that gather data from Internet surveys or cookies from websites. Be careful, however, of web search companies whose lists are mainly consumer-focused and may not be screened as carefully. Finally, there are list brokers, who lease large lists from owners and sublease them, sometimes at better rates.
Other considerations in working with leased lists:
- How often lists are used:
You don’t want a list that gets used more than four times a month. Lower frequencies are better, because fewer people have advertised to those names.
- Accuracy:
Be sure the lease company updates the list at least once every couple of months, or you risk a high percentage of invalid addresses.
- How names are obtained:
Find out the list provider’s methods of determining recipients who opt in or opt out. Ideally, opt-out names are wiped out permanently.
- References:
Use these to verify the success of the leasing company’s other client promotions and their response rates. You never want less than 2 percent, while 5 to 10 percent is typical.
- Message types:
Most leasing companies deploy all types of e-mail messages (text, HTML, rich media), but some have limitations. Also, some do only template-based messages, which have a lower response rate.
- Statistics:
What type of statistical report will you receive? Common statistic to track include click-through rate, number of recipients who opened the message, open click-throughs, unopened messages, landing page visitors, duration of recipients’ visits, and opt-ins and opt-outs.
- Other mailers:
Who else has mailed to this list or is scheduled to, within four to six weeks of your distribution?
You should always test a promotion before sending to a massive list of names. Dividing the promotion into segments lets you test the list, the message and the promotional response. In deploying, you must send to at least the minimum number of names the provider requires. But if you are leasing more than the minimum, you can better evaluate the results and process by dividing the list and sending to each segment a week or so apart. The test quantity should be at least 10 percent of the segment or list you are testing.
To illustrate how to incorporate an "opt-in" message into an e-mail marketing promotion, please check out the following promotions. Each offers a page for recipients to sign up for future e-mail promotions or additional information, which gives the advertiser the ability to collect e-mail addresses for future marketing use.
Dallas Area Rapid Transit TRE promotion: http://www.phastlink.com/promos/dart/dartmovie.asp
Lorraine Haugen is president of Lorraine and Associates, a marketing/sales representative firm for unique talent in the interactive and graphic design, art and public relations markets. She works with Pugh and Company to develop web-centered marketing programs. To learn more about the interactive capabilities Lorraine and Associates offers, visit www.pughandco.com. Please feel free to contact Ms. Haugen at Lorraine@pughandco.com.
