Efficient B-to-B E-mail Marketing

We all want to do more with less these days. When you compare the cost of postal mail (about $1 apiece) to that of e-mail (about a penny per message) any B-to-B marketer is going to prefer e-mail for staying in touch with current customers and inquirers. A no-brainer, right?

But here's the rub: Most B-to-B companies have only some of their customers' e-mail addresses. Even worse, if their clients' privacy policies require opt-in, even fewer are e-mailable.

Consider Cicso Systems, the networking hardware firm. While 45% to 50% of its global house file contains e-mail addresses, only 29% are opted in. Doing the math, that's a mere 14% of the list that can be contacted by e-mail.

HOW DID IT HAPPEN?

Clearly a dire situation, especially when you're trying to cut costs. How did we get into this mess? There are a number of contributing factors, among them:

• Data decay

  We all know how volatile data is, especially in B-to-B. But an e-mail address is one of the most volatile elements of all. According to Kevin Akeroyd, vice president of global sales for online business directory provider Jigsaw, 32% of business e-mail addresses change annually (compared with 29% of phone numbers and 16% of postal addresses).

• Consumer-like privacy policies

  DATA APPENDING

  Business buyers need information to do their jobs, so they generally welcome relevant e-mail from their suppliers. But when e-mail policies were being established in the '90s, companies — especially big ones — tended to settle on opt-in as standard practice.

• Blanket opt-out

  In firms with many product lines, an e-mail opt-out in one category may be applied to messages about all items, further depleting the address pool.

• Least-common-denominator global standards

  Many companies have decided to comply with the most restrictive policies from any region — usually Europe — to do business consistently worldwide.

PERMISSION POLICY REVISION

Given all this, how can business marketers reach more of their customers by e-mail?

The cheapest and fastest way to boost an e-mail address collection is data appending. For pennies per record, you can expect to append valid e-mail addresses to about 10% to 30% of your file.

Some best practices:

• PROACTIVE ADDRESS COLLECTION

  Select a reputable vendor, such as FreshAddress, Walter Karl or TowerData.

• Only try appending on names you already have a business relationship with, like customers or inquirers. Appending e-mail addresses to prospect names, while tempting, should be avoided.

• Neither should you ask the vendor for e-mail addresses of additional contacts at sites where you do business. Stick to the contact names on your database.

• Once the appended e-mail addresses have arrived, treat them with care. Reggie Brady Marketing Solutions' e-mail expert Regina Brady suggests that the first few communications should explain why a contact is hearing from you. State the opt-out prominently at the top of the message.

Just as the B-to-B world has ducked the do-not-call list, it's time for business marketers to rethink their early decision to apply opt-in policies to e-mail.

RELEVANT COMMUNICATIONS

If I attend a trade show and exchange cards with a vendor, I fully expect to receive e-mail and postal mail from that company. As a business buyer, that's how I stay informed. So as long as opt-out is offered, and respected, it's my view that a business relationship implies willingness to receive e-mail, and that well-established opt-out standards (like notice and choice) should be the rule of thumb for business marketers.

It appears this view is gaining traction. Theresa Kushner, Cisco Systems' director of customer intelligence, says while her firm consistently has been an “opt-in company,” when it comes to B-to-B e-mail, opt-out is now “under discussion.”

Message Systems' chief marketing officer Dave Lewis believes that permission policies shouldn't be based on opt-in or opt-out but rather customer behavior. “The rule should be whether the customer is engaged,” he says, “as indicated by clicks, downloads, purchases and answering survey questions. For too long our focus has been on list size. We need to move toward list quality.”

When you look at the cost savings, the business case for aggressive e-mail address collection is clear. Educate your customer-facing personnel on the importance of gathering e-mail addresses, and weave a collection program into current business processes.

According to Robert McCarty, Cisco Systems' manager of marketing foundation data services, his company has a standard practice of outbound phone calls to its small and medium-size business (SMB) customers to gather e-mail addresses. The SMB marketing team also works with distributors and resellers, asking them to allow Cisco messaging to go to customers the distributor has permission to e-mail. With large accounts, calls are made by account managers who cover that company, but marketing provides them with suggested topics to improve the call's effectiveness.