Advice for Successful E-mail Appending

E-MAIL APPENDING, in which a data provider supplies you with the e-mail addresses of customers for whom you already have postal addresses and other information, can obviously boost the size of your house file. It can also make it easier for you to retain and reactivate these buyers going forward. But many marketers shy away from appending for fear of being accused of spamming and to avoid alienating customers who had refrained from providing their e-mail addresses in the first place.

Some marketers even fear that appending will put them in violation of Can-Spam legislation. That’s a baseless concern, according to Tom Burke, CEO of e-mail and data solutions provider TowerData. “Can-Spam says you can contact your customers via e-mail as long as you don’t use false information, do provide them a mechanism for opting out, and do honor opt-out requests promptly,” he says.

HERE ARE SOME GUIDELINES:

• Provide your data supplier with a suppression list of customers who have already unsubscribed from your mailings so that you don’t end up e-mailing them again.

• Clean your house file prior to submitting it to be appended. Chris Rowe, vice president of data enhancement services for solutions provider Melissa Data, says that running your file through a postal hygiene service such as NCOALink or CASS/DPV (Coding Accuracy Support System/Delivery Point Validation) “will standardize the mailing address and make some minor corrections that will improve your database and increase your odds of successfully appending an e-mail to that address.”

• Expect to append only a minority of your mailing addresses. Rowe says that consumer-list append rates average 5% to 25%. For B-to-B lists, the average is somewhat higher, at 30% to 60%.

• “Select the type of match that is appropriate for your audience,” Burke says. “Your customer list can be matched to the append database by last name and address or by full name and address. For example, a nonprofit seeking to increase donations will benefit from a household match, but a pharmaceutical company promoting a specific medication should use an individual match.” And if you are a B-to-B marketer, make sure that your append supplier isn’t giving you generic addresses such as [email protected], Rowe adds.

• Make your first e-mail contact with newly appended customers a Can-Spam-compliant opt-out message. “This is simply a kind request [asking customers to allow you] to e-mail them in the future,” Rowe explains. “This is not the time to produce an ad campaign with links and colorful marketing material.” The message itself should be simple and straightforward; if you’re unsure about the content, most vendors will provide sample messages, Rowe says.

• Follow up with a campaign tailored to these newly appended customers. Customers whose e-mail addresses were appended are probably familiar with your company, but not necessarily with your Web site. Burke suggests letting them know what sort of content they can expect to receive and other benefits of remaining on your e-mail list. “Ease them into your standard mailing frequency in order to prevent fatigue and minimize opt-outs,” he continues. “And yes, an initial offer or discount is a great incentive for them to stay on your list.”

Got an e-mail tip to share? Contact Sherry Chiger at [email protected]