Email marketing has always been a powerful tool for the digital marketer. It gives one of the highest returns on investment in the business- if done well. For email marketing to be a success there is a crucial aspect that needs to be taken into consideration. It is your database. Email appending is the best way to ensure that you have the opportunities to reach your prospects easily and faster. To know what not do when undertaking B2B Email Appending Services, you need to first understand what email
appending is. It isn’t all that tricky or technical but it wouldn’t be easy for the lay man to understand easily either. It does require a firm grasp of data science, how it works and the complexities involved with using data.
What is email Appending?
Email appending is the data processing and upgrade service that helps in improving your email marketing database by adding email addresses to your customer records which are missing this information.
There are certain things that are used for this purpose. For an email append process to be successful, the email appending service provider will need the customers first name, last name and postal address. They take this information and match it to their master database. This way, they will get an email address that matches these details.
The reason email appending is popular and important is because many times, sales people do not ask for email addresses while adding customer details to the database. There are also chances that the input method doesn’t even ask for an email address. Whatever may be the reason, a customer record not having an email address is incomplete and email appending is the best way to make it complete.
Data security and privacy are crucial aspects of database marketing today. You need to be well versed with the finer points of the popular CAN-SPAM ACT and many such other data security regulations across the world. Unsolicited emails are a big no today. If you intent to use email appending to send out unsolicited emails, it is not just you who will get into trouble, but also the service provider who you used to get the email list from. This is dangerous and should not be encouraged. Make sure you are compliant with the rules of the country where your target audience is.
Always make sure that your prospects have an easy way to opt-out. It is necessary and a standardized option today. Easy opt-out keeps your email campaigns safe and they will not get reported. This improves your IP stability and doesn’t attract attention from the authorities.
Email appending is a precise business. It is rather crucial to the success of any data driven marketing solution. It improves results which has a domino effect on your marketing campaigns. Your sales teams will get better leads, and this is what everyone is looking for.
Contacting and conversing with the right customer at the right time has become the single biggest obsession of the digital marketing manager today. Email appending is the best way to placate this obsession.
B2B data is a little different from B2C data in the fact that it contains business contact details. These are secure and subject to stricter rules and safeguards. The volumes are generally lower and the value of emails is sometimes significantly higher than B2C emails.
Email appending allows you to open up your marketing to social channels too. Hyper-targeted marketing works very well when you have high-quality data. This additional benefit opens up major opportunities for digital marketers. This is why email appending is favorable today, since it isn’t possible to survive in the market with just email marketing. It is imperative to be present where your target market is. Email appending allows you to increase your bandwidth and scope a lot more.
Why you need B2B email appending Services?
Email Marketing
Lower bounce rate- This is something that every email marketing manager will want. Bounce rates increase when you have gaps in your customer record. Email appending fills these gaps for you. Bonus point- One of the best practices while doing an email append is that you run hygiene processes on your database. This reduces bounces too.
Contact more- You get email addresses that are verified and updated. This gives you more opportunities to contact your prospects and clients.
Save money- This is a direct result of email appending. You don’t have to purchase or rent a new list when your existing list isn’t working well. Email appending is also not that expensive in comparison to the previous options.
Multi channel opportunity- Email appending opens up multi-channel opportunities. You can connect with these prospects and clients via social media and digital media via their email addresses.
It’s a good replacement to PPC and SEO- You don’t have to pour in dollars for PPC and SEO when you can engage prospects via email only.
It maximizes data- With multiple values to your existing data, you get enhanced opportunities.
It reduces wrong sends- When you have verified information, you reduce the amount of wrong sends, and that improves your deliverability scores.
Complaints reduce- Spam complaints reduce dramatically, improving your IP reputation.
Email Appending Mistakes to Avoid
Email appending requires you to partner with a service provider- and we all know how tricky it can be. Finding a good partner also does not mean you will get the best results. There are many mistakes that can be committed by you or your partner when undertaking email appending. The first thing to do is to understand email appending perfectly. This gives you an edge and you can make informed decisions.
We have already given you ample information that allows you to know the various nuances of email appending. Moving on, here are some of the most common mistakes that are committed when perfuming email appending.
B2B Email Appending Services
Appending emails to a prospect list
This is the first and the most dangerous act you can commit! This should be high on your priority list. Email appending is NOT a fix it all solution to low deliverability and high bounce rate. It can only be done on an existing database that has been used and consists of users who know and have interacted with you previously. Appending a prospect list is a strict no.
Demand 100% opt in data
Cutting corners is not how email appending works. You need to make sure you get 100% verified data from your partner. This should consist of opt-in source and date and time stamp. Now that the industry has become extremely untrustworthy, you need to be on your guard. To make that happen, there is one thing you can do.
Ask the vendor to send out a verification email to the matched records. They should give these addresses the opportunity to opt out if they want to and then you can take delivery of the list after this. This is the maximum one can do to ensure that you get only verified and opt-in data. The general bounce rate for email appending vendors hovers around 30-50% and sometimes it can be higher. So, if you do not conduct this exercise, you are exposing yourself and your email service provider to higher spam rates and complaints.
Price is and is not everything
Price is definitely a talking point here, as far as B2B deals go. This is because since email appending is highly competitive and what you pay for this service has a multiplier effect on your campaign budget, it is important to make sure that you carefully observe and calculate the price in comparison to the competition. As always, the most expensive one doesn’t mean that you will get the best of services and vice versa. A low budget email append operation will not give you amazing results and it will have a cascading effect on your campaign. This means that bad data can wreck havoc on your campaigns and you will end up spending more on putting out the fire.
Your vendor list should be extensive and you should compare rates. It is necessary to see the patterns that can be seen when it comes to pricing. Find out the reasons for higher rates and why some are quoting lower than normal. Once you have answers to these questions, it becomes easier to choose the right vendor. You also get to know more about how the industry operates, how it comes up with the pricing and what you get for the price you pay.
Have you considered all options before email appending?
Email appending is not the first option that you should be exercising. List building does take time and effort. Firstly, understand why you don’t have all email addresses in your list. This point has a multi faceted answer. When you understand why you have lower email addresses, you need to find out the sources and try to fix that first. This ensures that you won’t need the services of email appending in the future, may not be the near future but it helps nonetheless.
Growing your list organically is still the best and the most practical solution to higher engagement rates. That being said, it does take a lot of effort, time and patience to build it. So, based on the time you have, you should try to implement direct list building options too, in collaboration with email appending.
Evaluating vendors not as competitors
Each vendor is competing with each other for your business. See that reality and apply logic as and when required. Many vendors will undercut others purely on rates. This is an unhealthy practice and shouldn’t be encouraged. Paying a little more for better services is the best thing you could possibly do to improve your marketing metrics.
Since the database industry has to have high-quality sources, reputation and reliability are crucial aspects while evaluating vendors. Never rush into a email append contract. You need to have sufficient time to make an informed decision. To do this, understand the history of the vendor, their current and past clients, their industry ranking, criticism online, and their partners.
Need to do point- Run test campaigns for all these vendors. See how well they fare and pit them against each other. This is the best and the most logical process you can apply to come up with the final answer.
List cleaning and suppression should be a part of the deal
Every vendor should, by default have list cleansing as a part of the email append deal. This allows for higher match rates. It is advisable to do it yourself first and then ask the vendor to do the same again. This is because no list cleansing process and be a 100% perfect. The more you do it, the better your email list gets.
Email Cleansing
Are they compliant with all regulations?
There are many regulations in the email marketing sector other than the CAN-SPAM Act. It is imperative to make sure that the vendor is fully in tune with these policies and their sources are verified for compliance.
Just how clean is your data? Identify where your data requires attention, allowing you to choose which areas to improve.
Get Free Email Append Test from AverickMedia
Personalization perils
If you have used household match as a parameter for matches, then we suggest you do not do personalization. It can never be correct and the results can be cringe worthy and horrendous, not just for you, but for the receiver as well.
Not asking for 100% guaranteed deliverability
If you are paying for it, it needs to be a 100%. If it is verified, opted-in and data compliant, then the 100% deliverable guarantee is a default. Always opt for a vendor that gives you this guarantee.
Expecting too much from too less
We are talking about your own in-house database. The concept of email appending works on the premise of increasing as well as improving your database. For this to happen, you need to have a good database yourself. This will make the job of email appending easier and faster. Make sure you have enabled all your data collection points and your sales team is keyed into this.
Email appending is one of the best and the easiest ways to improve your email marketing campaign metrics. It allows you great freedom to personalize, connect, motivate and monetize your campaigns. Good data is always the key to exceptional campaign results. Do not do email appending in the hopes of contacting new customers. It doesn’t work that way. Evaluate the need for email marketing; look at your own data- is data cleansing enough? These can give you a clear idea of if you need to do email appending.
Article From: www.ampliz.com
