Danny O’Reilly, Content Marketing Manager at Cheetah Digital, explains how you can double the amount of marketable email addresses in your database.
We’ve talked at length about how to do better email marketing. We have white papers on improving deliverability and sender reputation. Granular data reports in conjunction with industry thought leaders surveying thousands of consumers on what encourages them to engage. All supplemented by a plethora of blogs from experts on strategies from send time to subject line length, A/B testing to call-to-action language, and placement.
All will furnish you with the knowledge and tools to get your emails sent, opened, read, and clicked. But let’s flip the perspective. These optimisation tactics, however pertinent, only begin to scratch the surface of what’s possible if you vastly increase the numbers of marketable opt-ins you’re able to send these emails to. Because coupled with the strategies talked about above, to put it bluntly, double the amount of marketable email addresses in your database and you will double the amount of revenue derived from your email marketing initiatives.
Never take the third-party quick fix
The first thing to say here is: never purchase a list from a third-party vendor. In short, because good email addresses are simply not for sale. Bad email addresses will hinder the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns, and diminish your reputation with both your provider and the people receiving the email.
Consumers are more cognisant than ever of the value of their data and what falls afoul of privacy legislation. The inbox belongs to the consumer, and you should only be sending content there if you have been given permission to do so. So that leaves the question: how do you double your email marketing database?
The solution: interactive marketing experiences that collect the email addresses, permissions, and preference insights to empower you to double your database, and in turn, deliver better, higher-converting email marketing.
Sixty-four per cent of marketers admit bad data hinders their ability to provide a truly excellent personalised service.
Collecting email opt-ins and preference insights at scale
Digital consumers are more scrupulous than ever when it comes to handing over their personal details and preference data. If you want to earn their trust, you need to offer a value exchange.
To collect the email addresses and opt-ins required to double your database, consumers need to be entertained, engaged, and receive something in return for their attention and data.
The value exchange economy is where marketers offer consumers something in return for their engagement, and preference data. And it doesn’t always have to be a discount or red-letter prize; exclusive content, social kudos, personalised recommendations, and loyalty points can also be the catalyst for the collection of marketing opt-ins and self-reported data.
Eighty-nine per cent of US consumers will reveal purchase intent and other psychographic data in return for loyalty points and rewards.
Data-collecting interactive experiences can live in any digital channel, from social stories to ad units, web pages to mobile apps, from the largest screen to the smallest ad placement. They can be anything from sweepstakes to polls, countdown reveals to fully-fledged microsites. The key is that they incorporate data capture mechanics that collect your prospects’ personal data and preference insights — asking questions that help you shape your messaging to that consumer. And by asking, rather than inferring, you can complement your email list with a host of psychographic data points.
Download the full white paper here.