Email append is widely practiced in marketing as a way to enhance the value of subscriber lists. The approach involves typically appending email addresses, but can be expanded to include other such valuable attributes as direct dial phone numbers, to your organization’s customer database. This is achieved through gathering company name and physical address data and matching it to a third-party database to extract these additional attributes.
B2B email append provides a sure-fire way to add active email addresses as a means to expand marketing options. As a result, you can leverage considerable customer communication benefits. Adding current, permission-based email addresses is enabling many companies to bolster outbound email marketing efforts.
Email enrichment is a great tool to provide missed or relevant content as well as offers to existing clients. The success of this strategy is largely determined by the quality of the databases involved in the process. On the other hand, emails dispatched to the recipients can be in the form of opt-in or opt-out.
The opt-in approach involves sending an initial permission-based email to the appended addresses requesting the recipients accept an invitation to join a mailing list. You can also give the recipients an option to unsubscribe. Email appending forms part of sales automation.
Benefits of email append to B2B sales
Appending email addresses to your existing client records enables you to enjoy cost reduction benefits and boost sales. It provides you an opportunity to conduct lead nurturing campaigns with a wide array of prospects. Meanwhile, failure to maximize opportunities by ignoring records with missing information leaves money on the table for your business.
The approach has been proven to help entities reach more current customers via email. Some of the key benefits of leveraging the power of email append include:
• Accelerate and enhance email marketing campaigns,
• Increase revenues,
• Improve client retention,
• Improve delivery rate,
• Reduce direct mailing costs,
• Improve customer service, and
• Boost renewals and winbacks.
Permission-based email appending is risk-free and easy to implement. You can use advanced tools or hire specialized service providers. The vendors can match your customer list with an extensive database with millions of potential B2B customers. The results of the efforts can be dramatic, which translates to huge cost savings and revenue gains. It is possible to expand your email list by up to 20 percent.
Conducting a match test can reveal the possible number of email addresses your company can draw from the external database. Some companies have reported revenue increases of up to $40,000 and generated thousands of new leads. Some organizations, on the other hand, have saved up to $100,000 in direct mail expenses.
By using email enrichment, you are sure to maintain a customer database that contains valid email addresses. As a result, you close gaps in customer data to boost sales automation and email marketing campaigns.
How to implement email append
To ensure success of this approach, you should lay the groundwork by identifying what can be expected from the process. It is recommended that you close the gaps without undermining the quality of the database. A sieve with significantly larger gaps has the capacity to compromise quality by adding potentially inaccurate data.
Yet, too many refinements may lead to missing out on B2B customer information that is still relevant. Working closely with reputable email append vendors enables you to streamline the information until you reach the optimal range. This approach is a practical way to keep sufficient valid data while removing invalid, unverifiable customer records.
Achieving this sweet spot can make a difference between success or failure. For this reason, it is best to use analytics to aid data hygiene. Once you have gathered all the data, it’s necessary to use the information properly. When carried out correctly, the process can help you increase email access by up to 25 percent of accounts appearing on your list.
You have the option of adding the addresses to batch mailings. In turn, you stand a chance to gain a modest response. The introductory email must be composed based on specific interests of your leads. Doing so drastically improves your lead nurturing and outcomes of the B2B sales pipeline.
By opting to take a gradual, progressive approach, you can link new data with the leads appearing in the pipeline. Meanwhile, preference centers are a good way to motivate your recipients. The centers promote a two-way communication. You can direct the recipients to a preference center via a link in your second or third email. The center enables the customers to select an ideal communication level.
The options can be selected using a check box listing the following:
• Seminar and webinar invitations,
• Discount offers,
• New content announcements,
• Newsletter subscription,
• New service and product announcements.
Keeping a data hygiene schedule is highly recommended because, in most cases, the quality of the data decays rapidly. The majority of sectors register a monthly attrition rate of around 3%. Your email marketing campaigns can be undermined by this trend. As such, make an effort to keep email addresses valid by implementing a routine hygiene schedule. This creates an opportunity to eliminate redundant or duplicate B2B customer data.
A diligent approach can turn email append efforts into a powerful force multiplier for your marketing strategy. It becomes easier to create new engagement channels with a captive audience.
Opt-in versus opt-out
The opt-out approach presumes your right to market and does not entail any action from the recipient. Average collection rates associated with this method are significantly higher. You can dispatch a larger volume of emails to more companies. However, without prior consent the emails can be deemed as spam.
Email append coupled with a prior consent request addresses this downside. Unfortunately, this does not mean the opt-in approach is without limitations. Presenting recipients with a data protection notice may yield or provide access to a larger pool of customers. Some of the B2B clients may not fully understand what they are signing up to. As a result, the engagement opportunity is compromised.
The consent statement plays a key role in this regard. It must be positive and portray a professional picture.