How effective is an email blast?
I'm looking for ways to expand our current client list outside of direct sales and cold calling. With a focus of building web design and paid search results, we have a list of a couple 1,000 emails from Hoover. Would an email blast be effective in 1.) Lead generation and 2.) Branding ourselves for building creative and inspiring web designs to current small businesses in our area?
The email blast would be a one-time send instead of a subscription service or a recurring send of these emails.
I see this as the most cost-efficient way possible but I'm looking for some outside experience and insight.
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Dec 21, 2020
Relevancy of your messaging is key. I've heard lots of people say the lists they've purchased from Hoovers were flat out wrong.
We're a data and analytics consulting firm and we send bulk email all the time, but we hyper-personalize all our campaigns. Our open rates depending on the message are usually around 15-20%. We don't do a lot of direct selling in those email blasts, we send value in the form of information, it could be a link back to a recent blog post, but that blog post has a call to action on it for another offer (a download, workshop signup, online training etc...) that could convert if the information is relevant.
I'd avoid blatant spam. Make sure the message adds value and is relevant to the user. There's tons of great templates out there for writing good cold emails: check out this post from close.com
If you want to make sure you're selling to a relevant list, check out SumoLists for industry specific emails
Feb 26, 2015
The variables that matter most relate to the lists of recipients. It should work great if the leads are qualified, interested in your products or services, and in a position to reply with questions. Otherwise it won't do a thing.
Feb 25, 2015
If you are working for Hoover, I'm assuming you are selling their product as an independent agency. I would suggest you build your profiles in Facebook, Angie's list, and other similar home improvement websites to obtain a solid client list. "Cold calling" results in a limited population sample simply because most people look online for services. Phone service is secondary to social networking and marketing. My recommendation is to go there first.
I hope this helps!
Teresa
Feb 25, 2015
Hi, You can target people from across the Globe, who are not working and doing freelancing only, you can have agreement with to generate new business lead and share incentives on closer.
Apart from this there are lot us social networking tool, where people are connect to each other, if i will take the LinkedIn tool, there MD, CEO, Head kind of people have profile, you can approach them. .
Feb 23, 2015
It really depends upon the audience being reached and its relevance to the subject being promoted. Yes, it is going to be cost effective as there are few services like Mandrill, Amazon SES etc which does offer free accounts which can be used to send 10K emails free of charge per month.
Feb 21, 2015
your email address has a reputation score attached to it. If people label your emails as spam, it will tarnish your ability to get your messages past filters in the future. I would not recommend it to a company looking to stick around. But if you're sinking, it's a great last ditched attempt to grab ahold of someone to stay above water.
Feb 20, 2015
Emails Blast can be effective if they are sent specifically to existing customer who are already aware of the brand. If it is a follow up on a purchase, a special sale, etc often you will get positive results. I find when email blasts fail is when you are using them as a cold call alternative. Often these are deleted or marked as SPAM.
Feb 18, 2015
A email blast is effective, provided you follow some of the basic best practices. As this is a cold list of prospects, send it as a sales mail i.e. a plain text email. Keep the content short and relevant.
The fisrt para focuses on their challenge, the second on how they benefit with your services/product. If you have customers names to share (you may name them, but please take a prior approval from the customers) and third if its interesting for them, how can the connect with you / connect you the appropriate person in their organization.
Use a email automation platform, so you know who's opened and who's not. Start on a drip email campaign. Set a frequency on a mail in 10 days. If a recipient has responded , remove their name from the mass mailing list.
Try and personalize the mail as much as possible for your target audience, by doing some research on their pain points.
And most important, try different impactful subject lines and check which resonates better.
All the best. You may connect with me via linkedin for any clarification https://in.linkedin.com/in/vidyapriyarao
Feb 18, 2015
the advantage of an email list is reaching volume numbers of people. The disadvantage is that one can be seen as spamming. It is like throwing mud against the wall knowing that some will stick but most will slide off.
I recently sent out a newsletter to 2000 people and got about 20 'unsubscribes'. No bites as yet but it was more a PR thing and I did not ask for business so no direct bites.
Using that as a tool to reach more people is rather like throwing mud up against the wall. Some will stick but most will slide off.
If your not sure, give it a go. If your not blatently selling anything hj the email then the negative response will be low. (There will always be some negitivity so don;t take it to heart. Most people will simpl;y ignore it. Some will object and some will welcome it. Everyone is different)
Feb 18, 2015
I have had very little success with mass email blast using constant contact etc.
Feb 18, 2015
Go ahead .. Blast the Email..
Note :
Ensure your Email Quality is Checked..Else it will be Spammed
Dont push too much on Gmail, they will spam it and its waste of time
Success of the Email is on the Communication.. get your communication right.. do a A/B Check
Feb 17, 2015
Email blast is effective...and time saver too...but after that one should do a follow up on the same
Feb 17, 2015
I agree with the others that sending unsolicited emails probably won't generate the results you hope for and could actually cause some negative feelings. I see you are into SEO. I probably get one or two junk emails from SEO services a day. They go into my spam folder. I never read them and would never do business with a company that sent them. Unfortunately I don't have any good suggestions in the place of an email blast. I get a couple phone calls a week from SEO guys and have about the same reaction as with the junk email. The best suggestion I can make is to pick a couple of business segments and try to specialize in them and network with as many people as you can.
If you do the email blast I would suggest instead of promoting your services make it about tips for SEO and keep the self promotion low key. People who perceive you as trying to help them instead of trying to get their money would be more likely to do business with you.
Feb 18, 2015
Very great information Ray. And personally, I hate SEO spammers myself - Although I know SEO and can assist others in SEO, the last thing I'd want to be known for is annoying and spamming. Our speciality is behind PPC and Online Marketing. Your input on the 'tips and helpful insights' is a great idea, and I value your comment
Feb 17, 2015
Email marketing works and can work very well if done right.
Big bulk email blasts don't work very well if 1) your list is not an opt-in list and you are cold-emailing these prospects. 2) your messaging is not personalized and relevant to your target buyer.
Email marketing has evolved from these "email blasts" to more targeted & personalized messaging. Targeted emails can increase click-through rates by nearly 3x. The more you know your audience and the more your messaging speaks to the individual; the better your results will be.
With new marketing automation tools like Hubspot, you can use personalization features and marketing automation to make your emails match the unique interests of each recipient.
I wrote a blog post about email segmentation you may find relevant to this topic. It has some stats on open rates for various types of emails.
http://www.marketingstream.io/blog/how-contact-list-segmentation-can-drive-engagement-sales
It sounds like you need more than just email marketing. It sound like you need a online marketing strategy. Hope this helps.
Feb 17, 2015
Emails are effective for lead and brand marketing if the user has opted-in to receive the email, the content is perceived to be of value, the email is highly targeted and it is relevant to the audience. Based on your description, this is a third party mailing list so the recipient isn't expecting email correspondence from you. Therefore, it could be perceived as SPAM. This can be damaging to a brand. More importantly if you are looking to generate leads as a web design business there's a higher expectation that you would understand when email correspondence is appropriate.
Under this circumstances you have only two options:
1. Have Hoover send a recommendation email on your behalf (assuming users opted in to Hoover)
2. Do not send an unsolicited email.
Thanks Jeff - the site looks appealing but I think I'll steer away from Constant Contact, and possibly all of the e-blast options for the time being. From these comments I'm hearing that its not a valuable option and would not result in any short term benefit. Much appreciated