June 17th, 2011
I heard an offhand comment the other day from an agency marketer who
said most of her B2B clients focused their email marketing on rented
third-party lists (despite her advice). I thought to myself, “Really?
That can’t be very effective.” I looked at some data and found I was
right.
Although 46 percent of B2B email marketers use third-party lists:
These numbers almost completely reverse when we look at B2B marketers
emailing to a house list. About 95 percent of B2B email marketers send
to their own lists.
- 67 percent consider the tactic a “four” or “five” in terms of
effectiveness on a five-point scale, with “five” being the most
effective.
- 5 percent consider it a “one” or “two”
For me, these stats help underline the point that high-quality email
databases are workhorses in marketing departments, and that marketers
need to steer away from thinking about email marketing as advertising.
Love and Respect Your Audience
To elaborate on a point that Brad Bortone made in yesterday’s post, I would like to emphasize that effective email marketing is
based on relationships. These relationships hinge on
expectations,
promises, and
trust.
This might sound like fluffy marketing-speak, but bear with me. Specifics are coming.
First, people have
expectations when they opt into your email program. You need to clearly set these expectations during the opt-in process by describing:
- The content they’ll receive in your program
- How often they’ll receive emails
Once they opt-in, you’ve officially
promised to meet these expectations. If you fulfill your promise and only send what they’ve agreed to, that will build
trust. Subscribers will
trust
your emails will have something they want. That trust translates into
higher open and clickthrough rates and helps build an effective program.
If you move outside of the expectations, you are assuming subscribers want something else. You’re breaking your
promise, harming your
relationship, and undermining
trust. You’re encouraging them to click “spam,” ignore your emails, or (at best) opt-out — none of which are good.
So you cannot assume people want your emails. You have to clearly set
expectations, keep your
promise, build
trust and establish good
relationships to get good results.
Email Marketing is Not Advertising
Strong email relationships can only come from your house list. On a third-party list, their
expectation
is to not hear from you. They never opted-in. You’re assuming they want
something they’ve never asked for, and you’re encouraging them to click
“spam.”
Sure, sending to third-party lists can work. But look at the data
above. You’re likely better off investing in your database,
segmentation, and
relevance.
The mindset that “we’re just going to reach people, even if they’d
rather be doing something else,” is an advertising mindset. That’s what
marketers do on television. I’d rather be watching
Pawn Stars, but instead I’m stuck watching ads.
Advertising is great, but it’s not good email marketing. Good emails
are anticipated by subscribers and are relevant to their needs. This is
why a good house list is so valuable. Bad emails arrive out of nowhere
and interrupt people when they’re doing something else. This is why
emailing third-party lists is among the least-effective B2B email
marketing tactic today.
Their list has roughly 115MM subscribers and they send around 5 billion emails a month. 
