July 2009

Over the past several months, I’ve noticed a considerable surge in the number of emails I receive from people trying to sell me email lists. Today I received five. I’ve been encouraged, thinking that perhaps this intensified marketing effort is a sign that there’s new data supporting the viability of purchasing email lists. Wouldn’t it be great to buy a list of email addresses and suddenly multiply your avid subscriber base without much effort? So I decided to do some investigating.

What I found is that nothing has changed, only email list marketers have become more aggressive. Unfortunately, it’s still true that you can’t simply purchase subscribers. But I did come across several articles that provide useful tips on how to build your lists.

In the Bionic List Building Guide from Lyris we’re reminded, “Although there are many strategies for list building, the main thing to remember is that the possession of an email address does not mean you have the owner’s explicit permission to market to them via email. By law, you must get them to opt-in.” This guide goes on to provide a useful list of techniques to convert raw names into opt-in subscribers. You can subscribe to download it.

In his article Email Address Lists: Buy, Rent or Leave Alone? Mark Brownlow discusses the benefits of list rental compared to the risks of buying a list. This article is not new, but the content remains relevant. In reference to buying bulk email lists, Brownlow says, “At best, your messages to that list just elicit a poor response. At worst, you’re labeled a spammer, which has numerous practical consequences—all of them bad—for your brand, bottom line and ability to do business over the Internet.”

The challenge is to take a list of raw names, presumably people who are interested in your company’s products and services, and get their permission to send them regular marketing communications or newsletters via email. To summarize, the main tips are:

• Ask for opt-ins at every chance you get—in phone calls, newsletters, social media, home page of website, email signature, trade shows, direct mail, etc.
  
• Partner with complementary organizations to attract their subscribers to opt-in to your list.
  
• Offer incentives to motivate people to subscribe.
  
• Ask your subscribers to share the word and forward your message to a friend.

The bottom line is, there is no substitute for building your own email list of people who have expressed an interest in your company's products and services.

With all the hype about Facebook and Twitter, we marketers get that social media is the place to be. We’re repeatedly warned that if we’re not taking advantage of these new channels, we’re missing out on precious marketing opportunities. But with tight budgets, we need to prove that social media pays off before we can dedicate too many resources.

In his article Measure Social-Media Efforts to Grow Revenue, Lists and Leads, Dan Miller* boils this measurement process down to five manageable steps:

1. Set your goals (i.e. revenue, lead-generation, email-list-building, conversion goals)
2. Figure out how to measure your goals (i.e. what specifically are you going to track?)
3. Establish a baseline of activity
4. Create URL tracking parameters
5. Measure, study, analyze

It sounds easy enough, but you’ll need to read Miller’s article to get the details on specific ways to track activity and measure results.

*Dan Miller is professional services and sales engineering manager at Lyris.

One of my (and my demographics) favorite recent marketing efforts has been from Dos Equis beer: The Most Interesting Man in the World TV and radio spots. Each commercial lists facts about TMIMITW, such as "His reputation is expanding faster than the Universe" or "Police question him only because they find him interesting." The TV spots show grainy footage of TMIMITW (a gray-bearded, ethnically vague Sean Connery type) in various pursuits inspired by Hemingway short stories and Wes Anderson movies (Jai alai matches, arm wrestling, treasure hunting). After few one-liners we get the tagline straight from TMIMITW himself, "I don't always drink beer but when I do I prefer Dos Equis."

So we have a pitchman who admits that the product he's schilling isn't even his first choice of beverage? And who's strongest tie to the product (a Mexican beer) is that he looks vaguely Spanish. From a marketing standpoint, this always confused the heck out of me.