Resources for Email Database

Buyer's Guide to E-mail Databases

E-mail databases give your small business the ability to successfully manage each e-mail marketing campaign, starting and ending with a solid database in place.

With a first-rate e-mail database, your sales and marketing teams can generate top-quality leads, as the database contains thousands and thousands of records, each verified to make sure that the details are correct and updated.

The databases should include the address and phone number of each contact along with e-mail addresses, allowing your business to contact clients effectively and quickly. The list can be sorted out via a number of categories including zip code, specialty or e-mail address. Most e-mail database providers pull url’s from a number of social network and social media sites, allowing your company to contact thousands and thousands of users through an effective e-mail campaign.

Benefits of E-Mail Databases

If your small business has been going back-and-forth as to the benefits of e-mail marketing and having a solid data base in place, keep in mind that there are a number of pluses when it comes to an e-mail marketing campaign.

To start, e-mail marketing is quick and effective in many cases, as using the database allows you to determine who the recipients are once you have approved the copy and graphics for your message. The shorter time involved with an e-mail marketing campaign allows your workers more time to focus on other projects.

E-mail marketing also allows your team to focus in on personalized details including acquisition and sales history, letting you segment your customer list into smaller lists so that you can transmit direct personalized messages.

A properly organized e-mail database will also assist your sales and marketing team in testing different offers, visuals and even colors that your users and clients will be more apt to respond to. With the e-mail marketing tracking tools available to you, you can determine which marketing message worked best in order to convert sales or user actions.

Lastly, a well-organized e-mail database gives your marketing folks the ability to do their e-mail campaigns at a very minimal overhead expense to the company.

At the end of the day, e-mail marketing needs to be an important player in your company’s overall marketing strategy, providing you with a coordinated sales and user engagement without the high costs and time involvement.

Pricing for E-Mail Databases

Like any good small business owner, keeping your costs within reason will assist you in managing your business and better the chances of maintaining profits and not losses. E-mail databases will range in price, so be sure to research different providers and obtain a number of quotes before settling on one to purchase from. Prices oftentimes are centered on the number of contacts in your e-mail list. If a provider gives you a monthly fee, then you more than likely can send an unlimited amount of emails without impacting your monthly expense.

It is also important to determine if you will be renting or purchasing the data over and over again. Many providers will also provide you with a money back guarantee of 30 days or more. Most importantly, be sure to track the performance of your database so that you are not having a large volume of individuals unsubscribe within a short period of time. If that occurs, then the list provides your business with minimal value at best.

At the end of the day, your company’s marketing strategy will assist in determining whether you should rent or buy lists.

Decide if purchasing or renting a list in order to send someone a suitable incentive will assist you in growing your own database. This strategy, however, can get costly, so some small businesses may determine that purchasing or renting a list for thousands of dollars may not ultimately more sales over time. Then again, when your products and/or services are worth more money, one or even additional sales may cover your expenses.

E-Mail Database Tips

While putting a solid e-mail database together does not have to be an arduous process, there are some keys to getting it done right the first time so you are not left with additional work.

Among the ways to best compile the database, your team should:

·         Gather e-mail address information by utilizing in entirety online and offline touch points, contacts and enticements to name a few.

·         Make sure the information being gathered is properly validated at the point of entry in order to filter out bad addresses.

·         Avoid sending e-mails to sites that bounce or red flag your correspondence as spam, something that can negatively impact your delivery rates and even more importantly your company’s reputation

·         Break down and segment subscribers through their behavior and/or demographics. This can be done by personalizing and targeting offers to the most likely prospects, meaning in turn your success ratios will be higher.

·         Try to re-engage inactive users by executing a targeted campaign to win back their attention. If someone continues to avoid responding, consider taking them off the list to refocus your direction.

·         Network with individuals and try to sign them up to your database. This is a great way to find new contacts and follow up with them to retain their interests.

Steps to Maintaining E-Mail Databases

As you put together your company’s e-mail database, keep in mind that growing the list is your goal over time.

Just as important, however, to growing the list, is making sure that it is properly maintained over time.

In order to do that, you will want to:

·         Do away with bounced e-mails – If you’re sending an e-mail to the same wrong address time and time again, you’re wasting valuable time. By doing away with invalid e-mails on the lost, you not only decrease the bounce rates, but also improve the company’s stature with Internet Service Providers (ISP) such as Gmail and Hotmail to name two. With too many bounced e-mails, your business could be seen as a spammer, potentially hurting your company’s reputation.

·         Clean up e-mail addresses – Cleaning your e-mails is an important task in that problems can be as simple as fixable syntax errors. By going through and identifying and fixing invalid characters along with changing incorrectly typed domain names on a regular basis, your business stands to reap the positive results.

·         Make sure your team is up to speed – When your sales and marketing teams understand where information is utilized and what the negative fallout from inaccurate information can be, they will be better prepared in gathering data going forward. With more delivered e-mails, your company stands to see a higher rate of opens and clicks, leading to more opportunities to do business with customers.