Email Appending and Marketing

Emailing to existing clients or prospects is quickly becoming the number one method of communication. Although there are many laws and regulations pertaining to email marketing, it can be accomplished quite easily when using an experienced email marketing company such as ACT ONE LISTS.

Depending upon a marketing or sales plan, target audience and budget, there are few different methodologies of email marketing to consider – single email, multiple emails, or multi-touch postal, telephone and/or email. A single emailing is a one time communication between sender and recipients. A multiple emailing is a repeat communication, typically with a different message, between sender and the same recipients over a specific period of time. A multi-touch campaign consists of communication between sender and recipients, typically with the same message, using different methods of contact such as a postal mailing and/or a telephone call followed up by an emailing to the same recipients.

The very best target audience to communicate with when doing any campaign is, of course, a company’s existing customers. Traditionally, this has been accomplished through postal mailings and, more recently, through emailing as long as the recipient has given the sender permission to email them. If a company does not have any customer email addresses, wants to verify existing ones, and/or wants more, then ACT ONE LISTS can perform what is called a Business-to-Consumer Email Append Process or a Business-to-Business Email Append Process. These processes involve taking a company’s customer file, containing postal names and addresses, and matching it against our file of 650,000,000 CAN-SPAM compliant consumer or business email address records. Once a match is made (typical match rates range from 25 percent to 65 percent), we send a client-supplied html or text welcome message to the recipients where, in the message, it invites them to receive that company’s email communications and asks them to opt-out if they chose not to. This process usually takes a few business days and then we return the client’s database with the “permissioned-only” deliverable email addresses appended as well as flagging the records that chose to opt-out of being contacted via email. We also have the ability to append postal names and addresses to existing email addresses as well as clean, update and data enhance them.

If a company’s marketing or sales plan includes renting outside lists for prospecting, there are a few differences when utilizing them for emailing purposes. First, all valid outside email lists available for rental have to be opt-in and permission-based – otherwise they would not adhere to current rules and regulations and a company’s message would be considered spam. The fines are steep and the privilege of emailing at all could be jeopardized. Second, because email rental lists have to be opt-in and permission-based, their availability is limited compared to their postal counterparts (typically, only about 30 percent of postal lists are available for emailing). Third, because these email rental lists are highly coveted, easily misused and opt-in permission-based, the email addresses are never released to anyone and all client-supplied messages have to be sent from the list owner directly or through an email sending vendor that the list owner uses.

Whether emailing to current customers or renting outside email lists to send a message, the following should always be included: The actual message in HTML format with a TEXT back-up, live links (if using them), subject line, from line, seed names, and any opt-out suppression file(s) from previous emailings. The message has to contain a link for the recipients to opt-out of future emailings as well as the sender’s complete postal mailing address and telephone number.