House of Email Marketing

Life is full of tradeoffs. One that most of us face every day is during our commute to work: though we’d like to get there as soon as possible, we drive the speed limit. We trade our need to get there quickly with our need to not get arrested or die in a fiery wreck. But how fast is too fast? How slow is too slow? As far as the law goes it is clear that the speed limit is the fastest you should go. But, to stay safe the answer is less clear. In general, however, the slower you go, the safer you are. Want to get there in one piece, for sure? Then drive 5 miles per hour. Want to get there as fast as possible? Drive 150 miles per hour – but say your prayers.

Often the best solution is a moderate speed—a compromise between the two extremes. The same measured approach also yields the best results when growing your email list. In our 2009 List Growth Survey of 350 marketers from around the globe, we found a number of list growth methods that work well, and others that are the equivalent of a fiery wreck.

We asked these marketers to rank each of 18 list growth tactics based on the following factors:

Quality: Are the addresses accurate? Are the names captured actually interested in buying what you are selling?
Quantity: Did the tactic generate lots of names or just a few?
ROI: Did the names captured actually buy something? Was the acquisition tactic cost efficient?
Continuity: Did the marketer intend to use this tactic next year?

In general, the more “organic” the growth tactic was, the more effective it is in yielding quality names. Conversely, the more contrived the tactic, the lower the quality.

Here are 5 main tips to grow your list the right way:

1. Engage the customer when they stop by. All of the list growth methods that were ranked the highest in terms of quality, quantity, ROI and continuity took advantage of existing interactions with their customers or target audience, such as when they visit your website, stop by your store, or call your call center.
2. Provide real value for subscribing. As Warren Buffet says, “price is what you pay. Value is what you get.” To garner as many subscribers as possible you have to have value in what you’re offering. Put yourself in your prospects’ shoes -- what is in it for them? In fact, in our 2010 Email X-factors research of 1,500 consumers, the top 3 questions in a consumer’s mind when deciding whether or not to opt-in for an email program were: “What’s in it for me?” “Will my email address be shared?” and “How difficult will it be to unsubscribe.”
   
    
3. Don’t try to purchase, rent or append your way to success. The list growth survey showed all of these tactics to produce low quality names, and since permission is not in place, mailing to rented, purchased or appended names can do significant harm to your deliverability, brand and ROI. Don’t kill the goose to get the golden egg. Your core program can really suffer when you try to grow your email list campaign unreasonably quickly using these tactics.
4. Diversify, track and evaluate. First, Use a number of tactics to grow your list. Our 2009 study showed that subscribers who had the largest lists used more tactics than those with smaller lists. Marketers with list sizes over 2.5 million reported using 5 or more tactics, while those with lists less than 10,000 names used just one or two tactics. Second, we show that those with consistent success are continually monitoring, measuring, testing, adjusting and improving their different list growth tactics. If you want to succeed, you’ll need to start doing those things.
5. Leverage mobile and social tactics. With nearly everyone having access to a mobile device with SMS/texting capabilities…why not just capture their opt-in to email via text?  Scotts Lawn Care uses this tactic at baseball games: (e.g. – “text BAT and your email address to (short code) to subscribe to Lawn Care Update email). Also, leveraging ExactTarget’s Social Forward tools allows subscribers to forward messages out to their network and invite them to opt-in. Papa John’s pizza grew their list by thousands of subscribers in a few days by encouraging recipients to become fans on Facebook, then encouraging those new fans to opt-in to the email program to receive a discounted pizza delivery.  Leveraging immediacy and the power of social networks has really proven effective for a number of companies.

So when it comes to email list management and growth you need to moderate your speed, focus on the value and relevance in your program, and honor subscriber permission. You can still grow your list at a rapid pace, and develop a list that really delivers quality names that will purchase from you and come back for more.