Email Lists and List Building

Email Marketing Best Practices, Strategies & Tactics

• The use of third party rental email lists has not proven to consistently drive a return. Only about 15% of those emailing find the use of third party rental to be “routinely justified” by results. Most companies find that the return has a significant variance (over 50%) or is never justified (more than 30%). 
   
• The amount of data collected during email list sign up is still pretty basic. Most companies only collect the basics of name and email address from consumers and name, email address, company name and role from businesses. Less than 30% of those surveyed ask for more detailed information like contact preferences and delivery preferences. 
   
• Consumers want more from email than ever before. Amongst a 2008 survey of consumers, over 60% said they would be more likely to opt in to an email list if they knew their information would not be shared with other companies and if they would receive special pricing for opting in. The ability to customize communications patterns and previews of products and special offers would incent 50% to opt in as well.
  
  - Source: MarketingSherpa. “Email Marketing Benchmark Survey.” 2008. www.marketingsherpa.com 
  
   
• The Direct Marketing Association’s Email Experience Council surveyed 118 retail email newsletters on subscription practices in 2007 and found only 3% required subscribers to confirm their opt-in request, a step many consider an essential best practice in order to avoid mistyping or malicious subscriptions. Among other findings in the report:
  
  
  • 55% require only email address at sign-up.
  • 45% offer link to privacy policy on registration page.
  • 43% offer one-click sign-up from the homepage.
  • 28% offer content tailored to specific interests or products.
  • 31% require a name in addition to email address at sign-up.
  • 18% require ZIP code at sign-up.
  • 16% request to be added to address books to boost rendering and deliverability.
  • 12% offer a text-only option
    - Source: DMA/EEC. “2007 Retail Email Subscription Benchmark Study.” 25 July 2007. www.the-dma.org.

• Confirmed opt-in adoption is lower than you’d think – email marketers often discuss confirmed or double opt in as the gold standard for email list management. However, in a survey of over 500 email marketers, only 30% were found to be using the practice. Some businesses are reluctant to embrace the practice because the extra step can result in fewer new subscribers than a single opt in.
  – EROI. “EROI Survey.” 2008. www.eroi.com/onlinemarketing- resource-center/resource-center/.

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