Email marketing and telemarketing
Discussion
Does anyone on here use either or both of these? If so, what sort of results have been achieved? Has it been cost effective?
I basically have a defined geographical market containing about 2300 companies with 5+ employees I need to raise awareness in. Directory ads are now proving to be too random, and the last snail mail marketing I did was so poor in terms of response I may as well have just chucked the brochures, envelopes and stamps in the bin.
New ideas are therefore needed.
I basically have a defined geographical market containing about 2300 companies with 5+ employees I need to raise awareness in. Directory ads are now proving to be too random, and the last snail mail marketing I did was so poor in terms of response I may as well have just chucked the brochures, envelopes and stamps in the bin.
New ideas are therefore needed.
The Londoner said:
Does anyone on here use either or both of these? If so, what sort of results have been achieved? Has it been cost effective?
I basically have a defined geographical market containing about 2300 companies with 5+ employees I need to raise awareness in. Directory ads are now proving to be too random, and the last snail mail marketing I did was so poor in terms of response I may as well have just chucked the brochures, envelopes and stamps in the bin.
New ideas are therefore needed.
Did you follow up the letters with telephone calls? If not, then therein lies the problem with the snail mail efforts...I basically have a defined geographical market containing about 2300 companies with 5+ employees I need to raise awareness in. Directory ads are now proving to be too random, and the last snail mail marketing I did was so poor in terms of response I may as well have just chucked the brochures, envelopes and stamps in the bin.
New ideas are therefore needed.
RichBurley said:
The Londoner said:
Does anyone on here use either or both of these? If so, what sort of results have been achieved? Has it been cost effective?
I basically have a defined geographical market containing about 2300 companies with 5+ employees I need to raise awareness in. Directory ads are now proving to be too random, and the last snail mail marketing I did was so poor in terms of response I may as well have just chucked the brochures, envelopes and stamps in the bin.
New ideas are therefore needed.
Did you follow up the letters with telephone calls? If not, then therein lies the problem with the snail mail efforts...I basically have a defined geographical market containing about 2300 companies with 5+ employees I need to raise awareness in. Directory ads are now proving to be too random, and the last snail mail marketing I did was so poor in terms of response I may as well have just chucked the brochures, envelopes and stamps in the bin.
New ideas are therefore needed.
Admmiting to using Email marketing here is like admitting you are a serial rapist. But yes my company has used Email marketing in the past and it has been very effective in lead generation. You get a lot more bang per buck with the Email marketing vs telesales. We ran a telesales campaign alongside the email marketing one and chopped it after two weeks because of the far superior lead rate of the emails.
The Londoner said:
When I first started doing them, I was getting a 1-2% conversion rate which was fine in terms of my time/personnel resources, and that was without any follow up. As time has gone on though, the response rate has fallen off drastically.
There is a reason why. You need to analyse what you've done. Perhaps the letters aren't as relevant. Perhaps the data isn't as good. Perhaps there is a rival product/service that is better. (1-2% is the expected response rate.) Try having a time-specific response mechanism (eg 10% off if you buy before 28th February).As for email and telemarketing, make sure all data is suitably TPSed etc and make sure the emails that were collected had the approval of the recipients. There are a lot of lists out there that would get you in trouble if you click the "send" button.
I think with email marketing it is pretty much the same as snail mail marketing, it completely depends on the quality of what is sent.
Email is effective not perhaps because it just is... but because of the bang per buck scattergun effect. For example, it might cost £6000 to snail mail 20,000 people, but the email might be £100. From our experience the snail mail gets more leads, but the cost per lead is higher.
This is both based upon a data companies 'guess' at the right lead for us and us trusting that that person is the right person.
However, I have done an email campaign where we found peoples email addresses from the net, and made sure we were writing to the right person, personalised the subject of each email about them and personalised each email also to their needs.
That difference took the response rate from 0.1% to 15% straight away.
I would suggest that with a potential client base of 2300 that is quite small. I think the scattergun approach would get some response, however you might be selling yourself short as it might be a better economy, especially from the lead generated spending a bit more time getting the exact contact needed and personalising each email.
To counter the thoughts that email is 'spam' it certainly has a lot of good points which make it supremely effective over snail mail. If you can get your potential recipient in a position whereby within 2 seconds they can get to your website and without moving, 2 seconds later they can contact you back, just by hitting the reply button.
Email is effective not perhaps because it just is... but because of the bang per buck scattergun effect. For example, it might cost £6000 to snail mail 20,000 people, but the email might be £100. From our experience the snail mail gets more leads, but the cost per lead is higher.
This is both based upon a data companies 'guess' at the right lead for us and us trusting that that person is the right person.
However, I have done an email campaign where we found peoples email addresses from the net, and made sure we were writing to the right person, personalised the subject of each email about them and personalised each email also to their needs.
That difference took the response rate from 0.1% to 15% straight away.
I would suggest that with a potential client base of 2300 that is quite small. I think the scattergun approach would get some response, however you might be selling yourself short as it might be a better economy, especially from the lead generated spending a bit more time getting the exact contact needed and personalising each email.
To counter the thoughts that email is 'spam' it certainly has a lot of good points which make it supremely effective over snail mail. If you can get your potential recipient in a position whereby within 2 seconds they can get to your website and without moving, 2 seconds later they can contact you back, just by hitting the reply button.
Yes! Set up a "microsite" just for the email responders.
As to the spam comment, if it's highly targeted there should be no problem. I dislike spam (I get about 400 a day). I will however happily open messages from websites I regularly use (like PH) that state they are sending an advert because I'd said it was ok (and I had!); chances are that email is relevant to my interests.
As to the spam comment, if it's highly targeted there should be no problem. I dislike spam (I get about 400 a day). I will however happily open messages from websites I regularly use (like PH) that state they are sending an advert because I'd said it was ok (and I had!); chances are that email is relevant to my interests.
Edited by shadowninja on Friday 25th January 11:08
You will find that the chances of getting a response from a simple cold mailing is small to none.
It is argued that on average you will need to contact people 3+ times before you stand a chance on getting a response. This can be done in any number of ways or combinations of mail email or phone.
The quality of who you are contacting though is king. If you contact the right people at the right time then you stand a chance. Timing is sometimes important too as someone may have a supplier they are perfectly happy with at this time, but two months down the line they may not be and another mailing or phone call could come up trumps.
Being a company that offers all but the telemarketing my opinion is that the main difference between email and direct mail is that email marketing is seen by many as more of an invasion of privacy and as such is a harder medium to get responses from. However is far easier to track.
With email for example you can track exactly who has opened the mail, who has clicked on what etc.
The analysis of this should then give you a list of potential interest to follow up on.
I would suggest having mailed your contacts you look at what you sent them and how affective you think it may have been if you simply sent a brochure and a letter the likely hood is small as a high percentage will of just hit the bin and not even made it to who it was addressed too. You could then choose to go on from there by another mail-shot from a different angle, an email campaign following up on the mailing or a telemarketing campaign to do the same.
Good luck
Glyn
It is argued that on average you will need to contact people 3+ times before you stand a chance on getting a response. This can be done in any number of ways or combinations of mail email or phone.
The quality of who you are contacting though is king. If you contact the right people at the right time then you stand a chance. Timing is sometimes important too as someone may have a supplier they are perfectly happy with at this time, but two months down the line they may not be and another mailing or phone call could come up trumps.
Being a company that offers all but the telemarketing my opinion is that the main difference between email and direct mail is that email marketing is seen by many as more of an invasion of privacy and as such is a harder medium to get responses from. However is far easier to track.
With email for example you can track exactly who has opened the mail, who has clicked on what etc.
The analysis of this should then give you a list of potential interest to follow up on.
I would suggest having mailed your contacts you look at what you sent them and how affective you think it may have been if you simply sent a brochure and a letter the likely hood is small as a high percentage will of just hit the bin and not even made it to who it was addressed too. You could then choose to go on from there by another mail-shot from a different angle, an email campaign following up on the mailing or a telemarketing campaign to do the same.
Good luck
Glyn
I work in financial services marketing. The short answer to your question is dont bother, we have piloted (each 'pilot' outlay roughly £15k-£20k) many methods and email and outbound calling fail miserably. The outbound calling 'cost per sale' is actually a money loser, we only start to make money after 3-5 years on the one contract/agreement. In general all 'traditional' media types (press, direct mail, cold call) don't do much yet are the most expensive to do.
Sort your website out, 2 years ago out business split was 20% online, 80% offline. We now have this running at 65% online.
We made a massive impact on our sales by doing a few key things:
1) Search engine optimisation - Sort out your google rankings..meta tags..etc..etc!!
2) Affiliate networks - Since inception these have driven massive business.
3) Sort your website out - start a 'customer experience/journey' project, look at things you can do to make it easier for the customer to get the info they need and most importantly..buy!
I'm here all week!
Sort your website out, 2 years ago out business split was 20% online, 80% offline. We now have this running at 65% online.
We made a massive impact on our sales by doing a few key things:
1) Search engine optimisation - Sort out your google rankings..meta tags..etc..etc!!
2) Affiliate networks - Since inception these have driven massive business.
3) Sort your website out - start a 'customer experience/journey' project, look at things you can do to make it easier for the customer to get the info they need and most importantly..buy!
I'm here all week!
I think the annecdotal stories of 'what works and what doesnt' are useful, but it must be pointed out that ALL of these results are completely dependent on the sector and even more importantly *exactly* what the message as and secondly how it is presented.
I must be honest, I know I am on mailing lists for financial services management as it seems I have been profiled that way, and I have not once responded to a letter. I have not been called either, but this certainly wouldnt be the medium I would discuss my financial dealings with a complete stranger.
The other way of looking at this is that my most successful mailing produced 700 leads from 21,000 sent out. That was more than enough to keep my business going for a whole year and increased turnover by 80%.
So, it can work, even with lowish quality contacts - it all depends on the offer and whether it grabs their attention.
However, the reason why I didnt say this was a good way forward in this scenario would be that with a relatively small market of 2000 or so, the very best you are looking at is maybe 50 or 70 contacts, and if this is maybe your first mailing and is not written with the tricks you might pick up after you have done a few, you might get 10 or less.
Of course all of these leads will still have to be converted...
The other way of looking at it is that this could be used in conjunction with another marketing method. We have done that before, sent something out we knew wouldnt maximise response, but would at least get enough response to keep us going in the meantime.
I must be honest, I know I am on mailing lists for financial services management as it seems I have been profiled that way, and I have not once responded to a letter. I have not been called either, but this certainly wouldnt be the medium I would discuss my financial dealings with a complete stranger.
The other way of looking at this is that my most successful mailing produced 700 leads from 21,000 sent out. That was more than enough to keep my business going for a whole year and increased turnover by 80%.
So, it can work, even with lowish quality contacts - it all depends on the offer and whether it grabs their attention.
However, the reason why I didnt say this was a good way forward in this scenario would be that with a relatively small market of 2000 or so, the very best you are looking at is maybe 50 or 70 contacts, and if this is maybe your first mailing and is not written with the tricks you might pick up after you have done a few, you might get 10 or less.
Of course all of these leads will still have to be converted...
The other way of looking at it is that this could be used in conjunction with another marketing method. We have done that before, sent something out we knew wouldnt maximise response, but would at least get enough response to keep us going in the meantime.
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