All businesses need a marketing contact list – a directory of current clients and prospects who are candidates for buying your products and services. In many cases, the “business mailing list” is a core element in a marketing plan. But how should business owners and managers assemble this list in the first place? In this article, DataEntryOutsourced describes how to build your company’s marketing contact list.
Marketing Contact List Definition
What is a marketing contact list? Often referred to as a mailing list, it is a directory of potential buyer names and addresses – both email and postal – used by organizations to distribute marketing material. When it is properly maintained, a mailing list is one of the most valuable marketing resources for a company. With proper use, a marketing contact list will help businesses increase sales and improve customer satisfaction.
Building a Marketing Contact List
Remember that in compiling your list, the overall goal is to build a marketing contact list of people interested in your company’s services and products. But before you create your database, think about what information you want to store for each contact. The starting point includes basic contact details such as name, address, email, telephone and fax numbers. Additional information could include income, age, gender and buying habits that will help you to target specific demographic groups.
How do you obtain these names? Here are seven suggestions:
- Information from customer bank checks
- Online subscriptions to your e-newsletter
- Buyers in your online store
- Contact information from people who download a free e-book or white paper
- Responses to a print or online ad
- Entries in a free drawing – in person, just ask attendees to drop their business card in a bowl
- By using social media – please refer to the next-to-last section in this article
Segmenting Your Prospects
Segmenting and focusing your list is a prudent step to help you shorten the list to include only primary prospects. One way to do this is to ask a few questions that will help you decide what you plan to do with the “final list” of prospects. Here are some questions to consider:
- Do you want to boost telephone sales or drive traffic to your website?
- What is the budget?
- How will you measure effectiveness?
- Which decision-maker do you want to reach?
- Are you planning a discount offer or a giveaway promotion?
- Are you running a mail or phone campaign (or possibly both)?
For example, if you want the final list to include only corporate officers such as the owner, chief executive officer, chief operating officer and vice president, you can eliminate names on the mailing list that do not reflect this status.
Improving Your Marketing Database Quality
In your rush to build a marketing contact list, don’t overlook quality as a critical guideline. Always be selective by defining when you want the list and what sort of people should be on it. Quality rather than quantity should be your defining benchmark. For example, a short list of well-defined prospects is more valuable than a lengthy list of the wrong people. Whenever possible, create multiple email subscriptions that reflect interest in more specific topics.
Educate your staff about the importance of accuracy in obtaining and entering data – mistyping one letter or number in an email address will result in a lost business opportunity. When sending content by either regular mail or email, make sure the quality of the content is impeccable: Well-written, informative, newsworthy and without obvious mistakes like multiple typos. By doing this, you will ensure that recipients stay subscribed to your email list because they will want to see what you have to say!
Using Social Media to Build Your Contact List
Social media continues to be the most “business-friendly” networking tool, and there are several opportunities to add to your marketing contact list. One example is by adding sign-up links to your profile. Other common examples include new connections, endorsements and comments on a post you made – in all of these cases, you should consider taking the opportunity to invite the person to join your mailing list.
Final Thoughts about Data Mining Techniques to Build Email Lists
How important is email in your current marketing efforts? According to a recent DMA study, 75 percent of marketers report that they are using email more today than they were three years ago.
Is your online data mining producing a clean marketing contact database? While building and maintaining an accurate mailing list is a time-consuming process, you should consider outsourcing these business tasks to experts like DataEntryOutsourced.
Please share your observations about mailing lists by leaving a comment below and sharing your thoughts by using the social media icons.
– DataEntryOutsourced
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