eSalesData

The New Model of Selling

2009-09-30T10:48:00.000-07:00

How to Sell The Way The Best People Sell

Welcome to the New Model of Selling. This is the most significant and meaningful transformation of basic selling techniques that have ever taken place, and the mastery of this new model is your key to outstanding sales performance for the rest of your career.

In the new model, which is like an upside down triangle, there are four parts of the selling process. The four steps are the process by which all top salespeople sell today.

Build Trust First

The first part of the new model, fully forty percent of the sales process, is building trust. The level of trust between the prospect and the salesperson is the ingredient that makes all the rest of the sales process possible. If for any reason trust has not been thoroughly established at the outset, the sales presentation begins moving out onto thin ice with the very real possibility that it will fall apart. Because customers today are bombarded by so much conflicting information and so many competitive claims, which they can not sort out on their own, the element of trust becomes the indispensable ingredient in all sales decisions.

Identify the Real Needs

The second part of the new model, thirty percent of the process, is the identification of the real needs of the prospect relative to the product or service offering. It is based on asking well-prepared questions and listening carefully to the answers. It requires reading between the lines and feeding back the prospect's words and concerns to check for understanding. Only then do you reach the point where it is clear that the prospect has a clearly definable need that can be satisfied in a cost-effective way by what you are selling.

Present Your Product Professionally

The third part of the sales presentation in the new model, representing only twenty percent of the entire process, is presenting. The presentation part of the sales process is relatively simple if the first two parts of the new model have been thoroughly covered. In the presentation, the salesperson shows the prospect how his or her needs can be ideally satisfied by the product or service offering.
Close the Sale

The final part of the new model of selling is gaining conformation and commitment to action. In gaining a commitment to take action, the salesperson asks such questions as, "Does this make sense to you, so far?" Or, "Is this what you had in mind?" He checks and double checks to make sure that what he is selling and what the customer wants are the same.

Action Exercises

First, practice the Golden Rule in all your sales activities. Focus on building a high level of trust before trying to sell.

Second, ask good questions and listen carefully to the answers. There is no better way for you to build trust than to be an excellent listener.

Web Marketing Solutions

2009-09-17T08:43:00.000-07:00

By Rohit Sengupta, Marketing Manager

Introduction
In growing numbers, small and midsized businesses are integrating their traditional marketing operations with online tools and services, in order to expand their options for connecting with current customers and prospects. In fact, according to recent research, 10 percent of all small businesses are already using basic e-mail marketing as a promotional tool. This guide explains how Web marketing tools can help your business and provides strategies for launching a Web site and choosing the right Web host for your needs.

What Is Web Marketing?
Web marketing is the process of promoting goods and services online and reaching out to both existing and new customers through Internet-based tools. This can involve selling, advertising, brand management, market research, and customer service.

You can use Web marketing to bolster your current marketing activities. Internet-based marketing tools—including e-mail and list management; online advertising; electronic newsletters; loyalty, referral, and affiliate programs; and a well-designed Web site—allow you to communicate more interactively than traditional promotional methods. These tools help you collect information about customers and, based on that intelligence, provide them with timely, personalized information about your company and products. Consider these popular Web marketing tools:
E-mail—E-mail your customers tailored and personalized marketing messages. The messages may be tailored to customers’ preferences, purchasing history, and browsing behavior. They can range from a simple “thank you for placing an order,” to new product and service announcements, to special targeted offers. But be sensitive to customer privacy, and make it easy for them to “opt-in” or unsubscribe from your e-mail campaigns.
Online advertising—Interactive banner ads are the most common form of online advertising. Online ads can drive traffic to your site and build your online brand. Professional organizations, including the Internet Advertising Bureau, have created standards for ad sizes, including a range of new configurations designed to make Web advertising more prominent and animated. Pricing structures vary.
Electronic newsletters—These digital publications are e-mailed to subscribers and may include colorful graphics and photos. You can customize the information to specific customer or partner commitments community that use or supply your products and services—for example, include product tips and tricks section. By e-mailing newsletters that include direct links to your Web site, you can also increase brand awareness and sales. But be sure you follow online etiquette, and make it easy for recipients to unsubscribe, or “opt out.”
Loyalty, referral, and affiliate programs—These programs offer incentives to loyal or frequent customers. Some incentives include giving discounts or gift certificates for referrals of new customers to your site or affiliations with other sites likely to be of interest to your target customers—and likely to drive Web traffic to you.
Web site—A Web site acts as a virtual window into your company. Typically a company site evolves from a collection of “pages” about your products and services to a retail distribution channel, where customers buy products and services and you collect data on customers’ interests and shopping patterns. Key benefits of your Web site as a marketing tool are the measurability of customer interactions with the site and the ability to personalize communications based on visitors’ interests.

The Web site serves as the hub for many Web marketing activities. Web site development is the process of designing, launching, maintaining, and expanding your site. Web site development solutions offer tools to help plan, create, and build a Web site.

If you decide to outsource hosting of your Internet services, an important component of the implementation phase of your Web presence is selecting a Web Hosting service. Web hosting companies centrally house and maintain multiple Web sites. They also may offer a variety of services and tools to manage, monitor, and store data collected on your site; help you create additional site features such as e-commerce and discussion boards; and provide faster Internet connections to speed customer access to your site (for more information, read the “E-Commerce Implementation Roadmap”).

There are two common types of Web hosting services to choose from: virtual hosting and dedicated hosting. Both are often offered by an Internet Service Provider (ISP). With virtual hosting, your ISP gives you space on servers and other equipment that are shared with the Web sites of other companies. With dedicated hosting, your company rents or buys a server exclusively for traffic on your site. The server is located at an ISP’s facility, and they manage it for you. Which option is best for you depends on factors such as traffic on your site, the services you offer through the site, and your expectations for growth in your Internet services.

Benefits and Examples
Web marketing can expand your market, reduce costs and open new communications with your customers:

1. Expanding Your Market—A Web site and Web marketing campaign can expand your geographic sales coverage and open markets that might otherwise be impossible to reach. It also allows you to expand your company’s brand into areas where you do not advertise or have a physical presence.

For example, a single-location culinary retailer that had a very loyal—but exclusively local—customer base added a wedding registry to its site. Soon, out-of-town wedding guests were using the registry to make online purchases for wedding couples. Without the registry, the sales would have been lost.

2. Reducing Customer Service Costs—A Web site can streamline customer service costs by enabling online customers to retrieve product information and pricing, as well as communicate online to your customer service representatives while making their purchasing decisions (for more information, read the “Customer Care Implementation Roadmap”).

For example, a chain of coffee and tea retail stores added a feature to its site that allowed visitors to locate nearby stores in addition to buying online. Visitors typed an address into a form, and the site generated a customized list of stores plotted on a map. This reduced the number of calls store personnel received asking for directions, and it increased the store’s brand presence in the on- and off-line community.

3. Opening New Communications with Your Customer—Web marketing activities improve information flow to your online community. Your Web site and Web marketing materials—such as e-mailed newsletters—can provide your customers with timely information on products, services and special promotions.

For example, a marine supply company sends e-mail to online customers confirming their purchase, payment, and anticipated delivery date. The company also added targeted discount offers in their confirmation messages based on each customer’s purchase. For example, a customer who selected a marine radio could be offered a matching antenna at a discounted price.

4. Additional Marketing Tools—With Web marketing, you can increase the capabilities of your marketing department to include online market research, test marketing, and promotion.

For example, a chain of shops specializing in Celtic products purchased an ad on a popular online newspaper based in Dublin, Ireland. The newspaper’s audience is Irish expatriates, most of who live in the United States. The ad reinforced the brand to existing customers of the specialty shops and acquired new customers who were longing for products only available in Ireland.

Strategic Business Considerations and Questions
Your company continually needs to address and adapt to customers’ expectations, competitors’ strategies, and new developments in your industry. The same is true of your Web marketing activities. Consider these four points:

1. Customers Expect a Strong Web Presence—Customers expect to visit the Web and easily obtain information about your products and services, news, pricing, contact information, and more.
How do your customers get information about your new products and services?
Is your information meeting your online audience’s needs?
How do your online customers make their buying decisions?

2. Competition—Your competition is probably already online and conducting Web marketing activities.
Are you losing customers to online competitors because of their Web sites?
How advanced are your competitors’ Web sites and marketing efforts? Do they offer online interaction with customer-service agents? Online purchase options? Interactive products demonstrations? Links to their affiliates’ sites for mutual traffic generation?
How do your site and Web marketing campaigns compare to your competitors’ sites and campaigns?

3. Future Business—Many marketing initiatives have, or will soon have, an Internet-based element. The Web has become a definitive medium to market to customers.
Have you planned to invest in Web marketing activities?
Are you losing sales to competitors because of the Web?
What business advantages do you expect from using Web marketing activities?

4. Customer Feedback—The success of your products and services can be determined on how well you adapt to your customers’ needs. Collecting their feedback is vital to retaining your customers.
Do you get customers’ input in developing your products?
How can you use the Web to increase the quantity and quality of customer feedback you’re getting?

Deployment Considerations and Questions
Here are five areas to consider before launching a Web site and marketing campaign:

1. Strategy—Develop a vision for your site and your Web marketing efforts, and gain the support of your senior management.
How do you think your Web site will improve your business?
Do you have a method for gathering customer registrations or feedback on your site?
What are the short- and long-term goals of your Web site and Web marketing activities?
What image do you want to project?

2. People—Consider the resources needed to launch and support an online presence that is available
24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Does your staff have easy access to the Internet? Do they have the equipment and skills they need?
What technical expertise do you need to contract or recruit?
How will you scale your staff to meet growth, or will you outsource this work?

3. Process—Understand and define the methods and practices, including policies and procedures, needed to launch and maintain your site.
Have you considered what is involved in building and maintaining a Web site and launching Web marketing activities?
Who is your Web audience? Have you considered this audience when designing the Web pages and writing the content?
Have you planned for managing and updating content, including pricing, on your site?
How you will integrate your Web presence and Web marketing activities with your traditional marketing activities?

4. Technology—Keep in mind that reliable, scalable, secure, accessible, and manageable software applications and tools are essential to support these activities.
Would you consider outsourcing your Web hosting needs? Have you evaluated the costs and benefits of outsourcing these activities?
Have you considered the security needed to collect customers’ credit or private information online?
Are you prepared to provide real-time customer support to answer questions about your products, services, and policies?

5. Service and Support—In addition to people and technology, you will want to consider outside services for rapid deployment (planning, design and implementation) and operation of your Web marketing solution. Consider:
Can I reduce my time to market and/or my costs if I hire a services organization with expertise and experience deploying Web marketing solutions, rather than training my staff to perform this one-time task?
What is the cost to my business if the system is not available? How can I proactively identify and resolve problems?
How will I migrate my system to higher levels of performance?
If I really had to go it alone, would I implement a Web marketing solution?
Timeline
Deployment timing depends on the needs of your marketing activities and the depth of your Web site. The following table provides a sample work plan for a 100-person company that is launching its first Web site. Because of the company’s rapid deployment requirements, the timeline illustrates only the major phases of a Web site development project. Deployment includes the basic phases of:
Business Assessment and Strategy Development—Examine the current state of your company’s Internet activities, obtain senior management’s support, and develop a strategic vision for the company’s Web presence.
Design and Branding—Create the visual aspects of the site. Branding involves user research, determining identity, and a developing a Web strategy to communicate that identity through the design.
User Experience Development—Create a plan that tailors the site structure to the needs of your audience.
Content Strategy—Identify the content needed for your site’s audience, including whether existing content can be tailored for the Web or new content needs to be developed.
Technology Implementation—Address the hardware, software networking, and hosting needs of launching and maintaining the site.
Success Measurements
Following are several Web site development and marketing metrics to help you measure your Web site’s activity and effectiveness. Web site metrics track customers’ behavior in real time and help identify the effectiveness of the site’s information architecture, content, and design:
Web site traffic—this can be measured several ways, including counting the number of unique visitors or registered users.
Web site use—this can be measured several ways, including counting the total number of Web pages viewed, the number of times the home page or other specific pages are viewed, or how long users spent on your site on any given day. Web marketing metrics track the effectiveness of Web marketing-related activities.
Click-through rate—the number of times people visit your site by clicking on a link in an ad or newsletter or on a partner’s site.
Response rate—the number of potential customers who reply to your Web marketing campaign. For example, you launch an e-mail campaign that points customers to a specific Web address within your site. The number of “hits” on this page indicates the approximate response rate to the campaign. Remember that another critical metric is conversion rate—the number of people who actually make a purchase after receiving your e-mail promotion.
Look-to-buy ratio—the ratio of the number of people who visit your site to the number of people who buy on your site.
Effectiveness of Web marketing campaigns—the number of responses, new sales, and new customers.

Summary
Web marketing solutions can enhance and expand your existing sales and marketing activities. Using Internet-based technologies, your marketing department can help you grow your customer base, reduce customer service costs, and build a personal communication line to current and potential customers. Your business can stay competitive, obtain customer feedback, find areas for growth, and can meet customers’ expectations for the convenience of online communication and buying. Plus, you can measure your online business performance and funnel that information into making improvements in both your Web marketing efforts and your overall business strategy.

Steps to avoid SPAM Blocks (Ref: CAN SPAM ACT)

2009-09-02T11:09:00.000-07:00

» Do Not use subject headings intended to mislead the recipient into opening the message.
» Use a reply address that will be active for at least thirty days following the transmission of an email message.
» Include a physical postal address in the body of each message.
» Include a clear notice that the message being sent is an advertisement or solicitation.
» Include clear instructions in the body of the message detailing how to opt-out of subsequent mailings
» Honor all opt-out requests within ten days and not transfer, sell, lease, or exchange the email address of any recipient that has made an opt-out request . All of the above apply to both solicited and unsolicited commercial mailings with one exception. Mail sent to recipients at their consent (opt-in newsletters, alerts, etc…) does not need to contain the disclaimer labeling the message as an advertisement or solicitation. Damages under this Act can be reduced if policies and procedures designed to prevent such violations have been established and implemented, and a violation occurred despite reasonable effort intended to maintain compliance with the aforementioned policies.
Since most legitimate email marketers honor removal requests and do not send mailings by hijacking open relay servers or write misleading subject lines, the two key issues to address before the New Year are the inclusion of a physical postal address in the message, and the inclusion of a disclaimer identifying the message as a solicitation or advertisement, should one be required.

Email Appending: Reach more prospects effectively

2009-09-02T10:46:00.000-07:00

By Mark Stephens, VP, eSalesData

At the time of recession every Business is striving to enhance revenue. It is very important to reach existing customers and prospects that once showed interest in your products or services. Most probably they would be more eager to hear from you and do business with you.

With ongoing postal and telemarketing pressures impacting marketing budgets for many organizations this year, email marketing could become the "silver lining" for many marketers. But how do you create a successful email marketing campaign if you do not have a substantial email database? That question may be one of the largest Internet-related challenges facing companies this year. Add the missing email address of your existing customer and prospects and communicate with them on regular basis.

In any case, the economics of email distribution tend to be much lower than the costs of a paper- or phone-based communications or trade shows. “Email Marketing” is one especially effective and efficient way to reach customers/prospects to understand how and when to use email-marketing campaigns, it's important to first understand broadly how email can help build strong customer relationships.

Over the next decade, we see a tremendous opportunity to help companies of all sizes maximize their database by adding email addresses and help them establish on-line communication with their prospects and also the most economical process of generating leads through email marketing campaigns.

Following are few of benefits of appending Emails
Enhance business process evolution support
Save on materials and handling
Eliminate retyping cost
Accelerate business processes with timely data delivery
Eliminate cost of lost data
Decrease cost of inaccurate data
Decreases the costs of data capture
Enhance data availability and reporting

Email appending is the effective way of reaching customers at your budget.

Search Engines Grow Popular With Real Estate Buyers

2009-02-04T22:34:00.000-08:00

Mark Stephens, eSalesData

A recent survey by eSalesData Team

The metrics given above show that there has been a shift in the way that people took to buy houses. Online marketing is gradually gaining ground with today's real estate customer. The first-time buyers are younger and tech-savvy than ever, so web communication is essential, which can add a new dimension to your business. Optimizing your site for search engines is vital to reach youngsters looking for a real estate investment.

Tips for realtors – How to drive relevant traffic to your website:

Learn What Keywords That Potential Clients Are Using For A Search

It is very crucial to know the right keywords that a prospect will use for a search purpose. It has often been seen that most of the websites underestimate the significance of analyzing terms and phrases they should be focusing on. Try to know the keywords that your competitors are using. These are important things to know when choosing your own keywords for your site.

The Most Used Keywords Aren't Always the Best -- Target a Niche Market

The most popular terms do not work out always. It is important that the words should be specially targeted to your market and has the least competition. The online competition in the real market has become very steep. The big market players dominate most of the top search engine rankings, as a result using such popular and obvious keywords like "New York real estate" cannot avail top rankings to smaller corporations.

Therefore as large real estate firms and portals are focusing on greater metropolitan areas, individual agents can zero down on more targeted market.

Think of Additional Keywords

Contemplate and work out the less-competitive phrases to build your site's link popularity. More people try to extract such keywords than banking on the obvious popular ones.

Do not Target Single Keywords

Single keywords will match millions of web pages in any search engine. A prospect is aware of the fact that if he uses such keywords he will come across millions of irrelevant sites that he is not looking for. In order to be more specific they will combine two or three phrases.

A few examples of keywords will not be very effective:

Real	Properties
Estate	House
Agent	Single
Broker	Family
Realtor	Homes

Use the Longer Version of a Keyword Phrase

Always use the longer form of a keyword phrase that also contains the shorter version. For instance if you use "San Francisco real estate agent", you are also covering the shorter phrase " San Francisco real estate".

Small Businesses Bank on Online Marketing to Cope with Recession

2009-02-04T22:23:00.000-08:00

By Rob David, Manager, Online Marketing, eSalesData, www.esalesdata.com

Internet has ushered a big change in the pattern of the businesses transactions carried out all over the world. This trend has also led to increased usage of online channels by millions of small to medium sized companies (SMEs) in the U.S. Internet marketing has thus resulted in multi-channel marketing to reach customers and prospects and increase in lead generation.

With imminent signs of recession and reports of weakened consumer spending, small businesses are seeking digital medium to provide cost-effective marketing solutions to keep business afloat and buoyant.

Going forward, it’s important to know what online pockets are leveraged by small and medium sized business for lead generation and customer acquisition. To know more, it’s paramount to understand where most of the marketing budgets are spent and how digital marketing is reshaping the way we do business and create new market.

To find the answer to this question we took a quick poll of 800 small and mid-size firms in U.S to unravel their current marketing trends.

eSalesData

The marketing poll has given us the bird’s eye view of the major online channels used by small and mid sized business. The marketing report uncovers three major marketing channels used to create market value and sustain competitive advantage.

Email Marketing:

Majority of the firms surveyed, figured email marketing as the most effective and cost-effective way to generate revenue. Targeted email marketing can circumvent spam and delivery issues and give value for the dollars spent.

Local Search Marketing:

Most small businesses do business locally within a radius of 50 miles. To tap the local market, many businesses are employing SEO tactics to distribute business content to local search platforms.

Online Vouchers/coupons:

Large number of small business is promoting business by using online discount voucher and coupons. Coupons are mostly distributed via email marketing, banner ads or web sites. Adoption of online technologies is saving small firms precious marketing. With coupon redemption rates hitting 30 percent beyond, more traders are venturing to increase in-store activity and customer interactivity.

Conclusion:

It’s sure, 9 is going to be challenging year for small business across U.S. With lesser marketing dollars and sluggish market trends looming ahead, the future of small business depend on how well they can succeed at innovation and execution of online marketing strategies.

The shorter your subject line the greater your results

2008-12-19T11:09:00.000-08:00

One of the factors determining the response rates of your campaign is the length of your subject line. Most email clients display less just 50 charters or less. If your subject line is long, it becomes more difficult for your recipient to judge what the message contains; so, the potential for deletion obviously increases. Keep your subject line shorter for optimized open rates. More about subject lines…

Why should you pay extra attention to your subject lines?

Writing a short and winning subject line offers you many advantages. Here are just three of them.

Break barriers to the inbox

One of the many components that offend the ISPs and trigger them to block your emails is the length of your subject line –which is why it is said ‘less is more’, ‘the shorter your subject line the greater your results.’

You gain the competitive advantage

In the current environment of “information overload” there are too many things that compete with you to grab your audience’s attention. When you have a winning subject line, you gain the competitive advantage by getting your email noticed.

Compels your recipient to open your message

The first impression is the best impression. If the first impression is boredom or irrelevance, the message will not attract your prospect. In email marketing encouraging your recipients to open the message is half the battle. If you have a winning subject line, it compels your recipient to open your message, thus, completing half your task.

Ensure winning subject lines

So, when you construct your subject line, make sure that it is a short attention-grabbing, curiosity arousing outer envelope-teaser, persuading your recipients to read your message. Do not turn your targets off by being deliberately promotional.

Here are some tips to help you craft short and winning subject lines

Understand and appeal to your target’s self-interest
Get your audience’s attention
Speak directly to your audience – be specific
Inject news into your subject lines
Offer to teach the recipient something useful

Is your Email List clean and update?

2008-12-19T11:06:00.000-08:00

Is your Email List clean and update?

Shrewd marketers devote a great amount of attention to crafting their email messaging campaign. They scrutinize the subject line, fuss over the content, and carefully monitor the timing of delivery. Once the perfect message has been created, it is just as important to focus on its successful delivery to the intended recipients. Unfortunately, it is likely that your current email address list has a number of significant problems.

Your List Has Old Addresses

Unfortunately, people change their email addresses all the time – when they switch jobs, move, switch Internet service providers, etc.

As individuals change addresses and maintain multiple working email addresses for multiple purposes, it is unlikely that they will make a point of updating you. Recent studies indicate that nearly 35% of Internet users change their email addresses each year, and this does not account for the multiple working email addresses being added every day.

Ideally, you are aware of this problem, and monitoring the percentage of your database that is bouncing. Every bouncing address is an unread message. After repeated testing, you may determine that some addresses are truly "dead" (rather than being a short-term bounce) and be tempted to remove these from your list.

Your List Has Typos

No list is immune from the introduction of typos. These errors tend to be introduced through three different mechanisms:

User Caused
Internal Entry
Data Manipulation and Corruption

Your List Has Duplicates

Duplicate email addresses can result in disgruntled customers and database management challenges for your company. Obviously, it is unprofessional to email your customer multiple copies of the same message. Even though many duplicate addresses are the result of double entries by your customers, these very same people often become so irritated by receiving multiple messages that they unsubscribe from your list altogether. These "obvious" duplicates are easy to catch and most database managers can quickly do a scan of your list. Ironically, not all companies catch these duplicates, especially if they maintain several lists and forget to de-dupe between them.

So what now?

Now that you know your list has inappropriate addresses, missing addresses, typos, duplicates, what can you do? You either

Improve your email validation routines
Switching to double opt in
Manually review all the addresses for accuracy
Use a service provider to cleanse and update your database

E Mail Appending (Cleansing) by using Six Channels

Six Channels is one of the few companies that truly execute the standardization and customer email append in-house. By controlling the entire email append process in-house, we endow our clients the rapid turnaround, quality control and accountability they entail.

Don't Wait

You customer database is one of your most invaluable assets. To let it waste or drain is not the wisest way to do business. You should begin to think about your database problems and resolve to take care of it as soon as possible. Six Channels can help you reconnect with customers lost to dead addresses immediately, and ensure that your well-crafted email messages earn you the maximum return on investment.

What to Look for in a Quality Email Append Provider

2008-12-19T11:04:00.000-08:00

What to Look for in a Quality Email Append Provider

Selecting the right company to append email addresses to your postal file is a big decision. Pick the wrong company and you'll wait weeks and weeks, pay too much, receive garbage matches or all of the above. Here are some things to look for when selecting the right email append or email Data Processing Company.

1) Size of Database

Having a large database to match your data against is very important. It's difficult to tell however how many records a provider may have, so it's important to view their overall reputation and any statements from prior clients. This will affect the match rate.

2) Data Source

Does the append provider have a credible story for where the data has come from? Do they manage the lists for publications or do they have licensing arrangements with large web sites? It's often difficult to ascertain the source of the databases you wish to append against because the sources of data is often viewed as propriety information.

3) Match Rates

Higher match rates aren't always better. It's important to realize you want the highest match rates for quality data. That said, the major append providers typically can produce 17-25% match rate on a consumer file. Business-to-business files match closer to the 10-13% range and sometimes much lower. Be careful of append companies that promise the world.

4) Free Match Test

Many quality firms will perform a match test free of charge if you have a substantial order. This allows you to know beforehand how many matches you will receive on your file, without getting the matched data or being having to pay for it. Usually in this scenario the append provider will return a file with records flagged to indicate which matches were found.

5) Pay Only for Success

Quality append firms charge only for records that are successfully matched and deliverable. Successful matches have received the opt-out mailing and haven't removed themselves. You should not be charged for removals. The only exception is a minimum run charge, which typically ranges from $1,000 - $1,500 depending on the provider.

6) Guaranteed Accurate and Deliverable

The appends you receive should be guaranteed deliverable for at least 14 days from the point which they were matched. It's important to pay quickly and pick up your data so you can process your first mailing within this time frame. If any of the records you received generate hard bounces within guarantee window, your provider should refund your money for those records.

7) Fast Turn Around

Assuming everything is in order most append projects should can be performed within 3-4 business days. After this there is the opt-out mailing which can take an additional 3-4 business days. If a provider quotes you a long time for an append, the likelihood is, they are shipping the data out and sending it to multiple processors.

8) Date/Time/Origin Stamping

Does the append provider offer date / time / source stamping? This will come in handy in the rare event that there are any complaints. The provider can look up the record and offer precise proof of opt-in to the recipient and avoid any legal issues.

9) Competitive Rates

It's good to be careful here. In the world of email append the old cliche, "you get what you pay for" holds true. There are many companies willing to offer very low rates per match, but their data is seldom worth it. The best way to get a feel is to contact two or three firms and give them the number of records you have for append. Then let them bid on your project. To get the best rate it's also great to be able to say you are ready to go right away (and mean it).

10) Free Opt Out Message

You should not be charged for the opt-out message. This should all be part of the append cost-per-successful-match pricing. If you wish to send the opt-out message from your own servers you need to ask if this is possible. Some append providers allow it and others do not.

11) Professional Service and Follow Up

It's important to pay close attention to how you are treated from the very first call. Quality companies work very hard to answer your questions and respect your need to make sure their operation is legitimate. If anyone gets impatient or refuses to provide useful information this should be a red flag.

With that information in mind, you should be well-prepared to make some phone calls and shop around for your append provider. You may also wish to find an append company that can provide additional services after the sale. Be smart and do your homework.

Harness the Potential of Internet Marketing

2008-12-19T11:00:00.000-08:00

Harness the Potential of Internet Marketing

By Bob Mitchell, Creative Director, eSalesData

If you're thinking of starting a business—or already have one—Internet direct marketing can play an important role in making it grow. Whether your business is brick and mortar, click and mortar or pure e-commerce, you increasingly will be expected to build customer relationships by understanding, engaging and providing individualized service to every customer. And a powerful way for developing these relationships is personalized Internet direct marketing.

Whether it's a timely email reminder, a suggestion for a bottle of wine for a special occasion or a prompt update of a crucial software program, customers value personalized service because it can simplify their lives, save them time and acknowledge them as individuals. For your company, a communications program that engages your customers' interest can help to differentiate your business from your competition so you can build long-term, profitable relationships.

Six Tips for Effective Email Marketing

While delivering customized messages to each individual customer was once too expensive to be practical, the Internet has rendered the incremental cost of contact insignificant. On the Internet, contacting 20,000 people costs no more than contacting 10,000 people. And each "contact" can be personalized.

Four Stages in the Dialogue

The process of building successful customer relationships falls into four stages, which I call:

The awareness stage — getting a prospective customer's attention.
The permission stage — asking for their permission to stay in touch.
The involvement stage — when the customer demonstrates involvement with you, normally by making a purchase.
The loyalty stage — with repeat customers who tell their friends about you.

If you're just getting started and don't have any customers yet, you'll want to focus most of your efforts on creating awareness. If you already have a customer base, you'll need to balance all four stages.

"Young companies are wise to put time and energy into gathering customer data very early on in their development," especially customers' email addresses, says Adrienne Down-Coulson, senior director of client services at Netcentives Inc., a San Francisco-based loyalty and direct-marketing solutions company. "Without email addresses, they're powerless to retain those customers they've spent so much money to acquire in the first place."

Make it easy for customers to interact with your site on their first visit. Once you've gotten their awareness, ask for their permission to send them an occasional email. And let them know why you want to send them emails and what you'll be sending. Finally, make it equally simple for your customers to unsubscribe from your programs. Counterintuitive? Not really. Customers are much more inclined to give you permission and start becoming involved with you if they know that it's going to be easy to disengage if you don't "deliver on your promises."

A Retailer Asks for Permission

eCorps, a Denver-based online luggage and apparel retailer, works hard to ensure that its customers are engaged in a relationship and aren't just targets in a marketing campaign. As a consequence, eCorps is a believer in the importance of permission-based email. "We make it clear to consumers that they have the right to grant and take away email messages at any time," says Jon Nordmark, the company's chief executive officer and co-founder.

eCorps began developing a comprehensive, personalized e-mail marketing program early on. The company's launch was accompanied by a program to build its customer and prospect databases and then implement an effective strategy to contact the people whose names and e-mail addresses it had collected.

For eCorps, building relationships with customers via the Internet is much more cost-effective, efficient and measurable than conventional direct marketing. Andrea Butter, former vice president of marketing at Palm Inc., a Santa Clara, CA-based hand-held computer company, was the initial force behind Palm's successful Insync Online email marketing program. In the Dark Ages—the early 1990s—of online marketing, she, too, realized the power of asking customers what they want.
"Back then—this was before the Palm Pilot came out—Palm sold add-on software packages for handheld computers like the Newton and the Zoomer," says Ms. Butter. "Sales were so slow that I was actually able to read every single product registration card. And I was completely surprised how many customers took the time to write personal comments—about how much they liked our software, a problem they had getting hold of it or suggestions for improvements.
"It was just a treasure trove of input," she adds. "Here were customers who actively communicated with our company, and it was just killing me that I wasn't able to tap into that and turn it into a dialogue that would keep the customer's positive feelings about his purchase alive."

Today, the Internet makes such a dialogue financially feasible, even for small companies. The more customer information they have, the better. What's important is its relevancy.

Target Your Approach.

A highly targeted approach brings response rates that far exceed those achieved by using "mass mailing" email messages. "We've seen response rates go from an average of 3 percent to 15 percent when the communication is highly relevant to individual customers," says Ms. Down-Coulson.
Used properly, the Internet is a direct marketer's dream come true, transforming both prospects and casual buyers into long-term, loyal customers. Yet, online marketing differs radically from conventional direct marketing. It's no longer about the old model of "telling and selling." If you simply think of the Internet as a better, faster cheaper way to do traditional direct marketing, you're walking in a minefield. Privacy violations and spam accusations are a sure part of your future.

To communicate with your customers effectively, you must think service. Mr. Nordmark says that if you ask what customers want, they'll tell you. Listen to what they tell you and use it to deliver value and convenience and you've begun to build a solid foundation for lasting customer relationships.

"There's a saying that happy customers are your best sales people, and it's true. And the best time to begin communicating with them is in the honeymoon period right after the purchase" says Ms. Butter. "My advice to entrepreneurs would be to start communicating with customers the very moment they have a customer."
Direct customer communication and marketing should be a part of any company's plans. Apply the same old "broadcast" tactics of yesteryear and you'll be unpopular with your customers at best, and violating your customers' privacy and compromising the future of your business at worst. Internalize the new rules of Internet direct marketing and you'll be building the foundation for a thriving business

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Double Opt-In Email List And Why Is It Important?

2008-11-05T22:18:00.000-08:00

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A double opt-in email list is like any email based newsletter or e-course where people can sign-up through the Internet either on a webpage or sending an email to mailing list management software. What makes an email list “double opt-in” is that any person who subscribes must confirm their request twice.

After the initial request is received by the email list software a special confirmation email is sent to the address the person input into the form. This is the second opt-in. The email contains a link which the recipient must click to confirm their subscription request. Once they have done this they have “double opted-in”.

Why Is Double Opt-In Important?

There are several reasons why double opt-in is necessary, but a few key reasons I believe make it mandatory. The double opt-in confirms that the person who entered their email address actually wants to subscribe to the list. If this extra confirmation is not present (single opt-in) then any person could enter any email address to sign-up any other person.

Imagine if you upset someone and they decided to get revenge on you by entering your email address into hundreds of pornographic email newsletters. You would be forced to abandon that email account (unless you really really like porn) if these lists were single opt-in.

From the email list owner’s perspective it’s important that only people who genuinely want to be on your list are signed up. If you use a single-opt on method and, like the example I gave above, someone entered hundreds of email addresses of people who did not want to subscribe to your list, you would end up with a very poor quality list. Those “spam” subscribers wouldn’t respond to what you were offering since they are not your target market.

Do You Want An Effective Email List?

The whole point of an opt-in email list is to attract people who subscribe demonstrating that they are prospects for what you offer - their request for information signifies this. Using a double opt-in list is extremely important for keeping the quality of your email list high.

Consider you are selling advertising space in your email newsletter. You could boast that your email list has 20,000 members but they are all single opt-in and very likely many of the addresses on the list are not valid or go to people who never requested to be on your list. Your advertiser purchases some space in your newsletter but gets poor results so doesn’t buy again.

Now imagine a list contains 2,000, double opt-in hungry prospects that match a key target market. That same advertiser buys space in the newsletter and because of the more precise targeting and confirmed email addresses on the list, generates a better response. The result - a happier advertiser who becomes a repeat buyer of adspace in your newsletter.

Just being able to say “XYZ number of DOUBLE OPT-IN subscribers” is a much better selling point for any person attempting to monetize their list via advertisement placements.

Reduce SPAM Complaints

All email list owners get unsubscribers and spam complaints - it’s the nature of email marketing. People hate spam and anything that smells even a tiny bit like it or if a person can’t remember signing up to your list, may result in a spam complaint (AOL email subscribers are the worst for this in my experience). Even if you have a nice big fat area at the start of your newsletter that describes how to unsubscribe for an email list you will still get people who hit that complaint link.

By using double opt-in you can reduce spam complaints down to single digit percentages or lower. A single opt-in email newsletter lends itself to abuse, resulting in more spam complaints and potential banning of your domain name by the major ISPs. This is something you must avoid at all costs because once you are on an email blacklist it is hard to get yourself off.

One final point on spam - while double opt-in is not law yet I foresee in the very near future it will be. Using a single opt-in email list will be illegal and anyone found doing so may face legal prosecution. If none of the above arguments are enough to sway you, the threat of legal action should do it.

Get Serious About Email List Building

Last week I was checking my subscriber stats in my AWeber account and noticed that one of my email lists had over 80 subscribers in a 24 hour period where the average was usually 10-20. I was hoping it was because of a traffic spike from some exposure on a website or blog, but unfortunately it was not. A spam bot of some kind had submitted over 60 email addresses, all very similar, and clearly not from real humans. Thankfully none of these email addresses will be confirmed because of the double opt-in protection my list has, ensuring the integrity of my list is not adversely affected.

If you are serious about building a quality email list, and you should be if you are in Internet business, then double opt-in is a must. Even if it means you lose a few genuine subscribers because they don’t follow the double opt-in process, it is worth it to protect you from all the negative things that can occur reducing the quality of your list.

Tony Huff
eSalesData
www.esalesdata.com

Email Appending

2008-11-05T22:06:00.000-08:00

Thought I'd steer you toward an excellent article I received today from Jeanne Jennings at Clickz.com. She covers the topic of e-mail appending. Her article explains what it is and how vendors charge for the service. You can read her full article here:

http://www.clickz.com/experts/em_mkt/em_mkt/article.php/3527071

A few nonprofit organizations I know of have used e-mail append vendors to gain e-mail addresses from members and donors.

I agree with Jeanne on the following points regarding e-mail append:

1.) If you are going to do it, be sure that your vendor uses an "opt in" process.
2.) E-mail append is not the most cost effective way to build your list. Consider using other means first.

Have you sent a direct mail piece with a tear of response card to your full member list? Is the sign up form on your website as prominent as it can be and does it tell visitors why they should sign up for your e-newsletter and ensure them that their privacy will be respected? Do you have a line asking for e-mail on every direct mail piece you send out? Is building your e-mail list a priority at your organization?

I'd love to chat with you about building your e-mail list.

If you have used e-mail append, please share how well if worked for you. Please share what else is working well for you to help you grow your list.

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