Growing Your Database
The Right Way
Table of Contents
Introduction
Entice
Frustration
Fear
How enticing is your subscription strategy?
Grow
Create relevance Offer benefits
Give rewards and incentives How does your strategy measure up?
Collect Existing marketing materials
Online
Point of contact
Viral
Events
Special promotions
Which collection tactics suit you?
Maintain
Manage unsubscribers
Manage permanent and temporary bounces
Manage inactive accounts
Have subscribers update their own details
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Conclusion 13
About Vision6
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Introduction
Growing your database is the bedrock of
many successful marketing campaigns.
Striking a balance between quality and
quantity is especially important as a large list
full of ‘dead’ or irrelevant contacts will not
lead to a great result. That being said, in
order to maximise your ROI a large database
is often necessary.
There are countless examples of marketers
who have ‘taken the easy way out’ by
purchasing a list. However, what these people
quickly learn is that purchasing a database is
not the easy option. Not only will the sender
receive countless bounces and complaints
a bought list can result in the sender being
blacklisted or even prosecuted if the contacts
on the list were not legitimately obtained.
Growing your database with the right contacts
will not only provide a better result, it will
also ensure you remain SPAM compliant.
So how do you build and maintain the perfect
database without wasting time and resources?
It is easier than you think. The main strategy
is to develop methods of capturing contacts
into your existing processes and assets. Even
a small change such as setting up a laptop
with a registration form at an industry event
can generate great results for your business.
This whitepaper will take an in-depth look
at the most effective ways of building your
database.
When growing your database, four of the
most important points to consider include:
Entice
How will you entice people to opt-in?
Grow
How will you continually grow your database?
Collect
What are the best collection methods for your
company?
Maintain
How can you maintain your database over
time?
To demonstrate some of the concepts and
techniques included in this whitepaper an
example case study has been provided.
d id you k now ?
Collecting and maintaining a quality database correctly has a number of advantages including:
A clean and up-to-date database will
improve deliverability.
A well developed database can be
segmented easily to ensure relevancy.
Data collected can be used to help you
better understand your audience.
Growing Your Database The Right Way
Data collected can provide new
leads, contacts and cross-marketing
opportunities.
Contacts who have opted-in are more
likely to yield a return.
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Entice
The first thing to consider when growing
your database is to put yourself in the
shoes of your audience. Remember that by
subscribing to your database, your audience
is taking a risk.
Unsolicited email, direct mail and phone
calls are very common so most people
are wary of being sent unsolicited email;
especially if they have not had any interaction
with your brand in the past.
The two main inhibitors that stop people
from subscribing to your database are
frustration and fear.
Frustration
Frustration is most often caused by lengthy
sign-up forms that deter subscribers or
lack of a sufficient incentive to subscribe.
Frustration can also be caused by faulty or
complicated subscription methods which
cause subscribers who would like to sign-up
to change their minds.
Fear
Fear is most often triggered when sign-up
forms ask people for personal or irrelevant
information. This causes the subscriber
to worry about how their information may
be used. Fear is also triggered if the email
capture process is unprofessional as people
may think they are going to be defrauded.
Growing Your Database The Right Way
Case Study
Dave has a small but thriving home delivery
service which specialises in premium quality,
organic foods. Customers place a regular
order online which they can alter on a week by
week basis if they choose and this is delivered
to their door each week.
The client base of Dave’s Delicacies Delivered
is primarily made up of time poor highincome earners who enjoy good quality
produce and enjoy entertaining friends. This
group is very technologically savvy and welleducated.
The business has recently expanded to include
tapas, wines and cakes that are popular for
entertaining and parties. As a small business
owner Dave is keen to grow his customer
base but does not have a large marketing
budget, however, giving away products costs
him very little.
He already has a database that contains his
current client’s contact details, delivery
addresses and preferences. Dave would like
to continue to grow his current database
and also start a new database of people that
are interested in fresh good-quality organic
produce so he can send them a newsletter and
promote Dave’s Delicacies Delivered.
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How enticing is your subscription strategy?
Frustration
Do you ask subscribers for a lot of
information?
For example:
Do you fail to offer subscribers an
incentive?
As Dave is able to collect more detailed
information if a subscriber becomes a client
there is no need for him to collect this
information initially.
Are you sending ‘cold’ to a disinterested
audience?
Is your subscription method faulty or
too complicated?
He can also reduce the subscriber fear by
promising to send only solicited email and
disclosing how often contacts will be emailed
and why he needs any detailed information.
Fear
Do you ask for personal or irrelevant
information?
Do you fail to explain why information
is required?
Is your method of subscription
unpolished?
Have you forgotten to include a privacy
or spam compliance message?
What you can do
The most common way of reducing
frustration and fear is to only collect
absolutely essential and relevant information.
It is also important to ensure that your email
collection process is presented professionally.
As in the Dave’s Delicacies example make
sure to tailor your registration form so that
it does not cause your audience any
frustration or fear.
View our privacy policy
You can then create opportunities to collect
further information at a later date, when
your subscribers are more familiar with your
brand. More detailed information can be
collected by asking subscribers to update their
profiles and/or preferences, competition
entry forms or surveys.
Growing Your Database The Right Way
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Grow
Create relevance
Give rewards and incentives
The more a prospect is interested in your
brand, message, product or some other
aspect of your company, the more likely
they are to be interested in subscribing to
your database. For example, if a prospect
has purchased from you in the past they are
very likely to remain interested in receiving
communications from your brand.
Appeal to your audience by providing a:
Offer benefits
The term ‘mutually beneficial relationship’ is
one that perfectly describes the relationship
you must have with your database. To
successfully build and maintain a relationship
you must provide your audience with a
benefit they need or want; in return the
contacts in your database need to have an
interest in your company, product or service.
Your audience may benefit from being
in your database by receiving valuable
information, offers or news. You will benefit
by collecting valuable market intelligence,
building brand awareness and encouraging
purchases.
Tangible reward such as a discount,
gift or voucher.
Intangible reward such as a newsletter
that provides relevant information or
opportunities.
Aspirational rewards such as the
opportunity to enter into a competition.
For example
A perfect tangible reward can be
something as simple as a voucher or
discount. If your company is both relevant
and beneficial to the client they are likely
to appreciate a discount or voucher. If
your subscribers have not yet had much
interaction with your company you may
need to put a bit more effort into your
incentive and consider offering free
samples, trials or exciting competitions.
For example
It is a good idea to offer your subscribers a
monthly newsletter if they have indicated
an interest in your product or service
either by opting-in to your database or
through their involvement with your
company.
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How does your strategy measure up?
Use this simple table to gauge if your strategy
is enticing enough to grow your database.
Desire
What level of interest will your audience
have?
0 No interest
1 Possible interest
2 High interest
For example:
By offering his current and potential
clients’ relevant information they will find
beneficial and providing a tangible reward
that is exclusive to subscribers Dave will
continue to grow his database.
Customer Profile
Name: Jane
Email: [email protected]
Client Type: Recent
Number of Past Purchases: 2
Exclusivity
Can your audience get the same thing
elsewhere?
0 Anywhere else
1 Somewhere else
2 Nowhere else
If you have a score of 2 or less then it may
be time to reassess your strategy.
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Collect
It is very important that when collecting
contacts you are spam compliant by firstly
obtaining consent (express or inferred)
from your subscribers. Secondly, you must
identify your company within the email and
providing a clear unsubscribe option.
d. Email signatures are easily modified so a
subscribe option can be included in all
company emails.
e. Subscribe links should always be included
in your email marketing so that if your
email is forwarded on by a subscriber the
recipients are able to sign-up immediately.
Existing marketing materials
Before developing more complex and costly
methods of collecting contacts remember
to consider utilising all of your existing
marketing materials.
a. Existing materials are one of the best places
to collect contacts. Think about how you
can include opportunities for people to
subscribe to your database through your
current marketing materials, assets and
events. For example start including a
standard line such as – “Like to find out
more about our products and services?
Sign up to our monthly eNewsletter
at www.example.com” on all of your
marketing materials.
Online
The online environment provides a very
versatile and cost effective medium that you
can use to grow your database.
b. A sign-up form on your website is highly
recommended. To maximise your traffic
build a registration form into your
website. Rather than getting into too
much detail – sell the benefits and keep the
registration form short.
c. Digital incentives are a very effective and
low cost strategy. A digital incentive
can be any number of things such as:
whitepapers, metrics reports, free
programs or anything your audience will
find interesting.
Growing Your Database The Right Way
Point of contact
Collect subscribers at every point of contact.
f. Social media if you have a good following
on social media try to engage this audience
and encourage them to join your database.
One simple thing you can do is embed a
subscribe form on your Facebook page.
g. Point of sale is a great place to collect
subscribers and your strategy can be as
simple as asking each client – “Would you
like to join our mailing list?” Or you can
make subscribing part of your customer
loyalty program?
h. ‘I would like to receive more information...’
check boxes on existing forms such as guest
books and departure cards can be very
effective.
i. Customer service and support calls can be
used to capture information and maintain
your database as you can confirm and
update client details over the phone.
j. Business card bowls are an easy way of
inviting people to provide contact details
with minimal effort; as long as you ensure
that people know what you will use their
information for.
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Collect
Viral
Viral campaigns are a very organic way of
growing your contact database and can
sometimes begin unintentionally, however
there are ways you can get things rolling.
k. Send to friend links or tailored campaigns
reward subscribers for sending your
email to their friends and associates. For
example all subscribers that use the send
to a friend form may go in the draw to win
a prize.
l. Social media integration involves integrating
your emails into your social marketing
mix by including links to articles and
promotions on social media pages such as
Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, as well
as providing links in your emails to your
social media pages.
Events
Events such as trade shows, industry events,
exhibitions, careers fairs, sponsored charity
events and networking events are great places
to build your database.
m.Event registrations are the perfect place to
obtain permission to add your attendees to
your contact database as you already have
their contact details.
n. Event websites can provide a great
opportunity to collect contacts depending
on your involvement in the event. Even
if the event is not your own purchasing
sponsorship packages or offering in-kind
support will usually gain you a link to your
website or subscription form.
p. Rolling power points that are on screen
during events are a great way to encourage
subscribers as long as your audience is able
to sign up at the event immediately.
q. Event feedback forms can include an
opportunity to subscribe for future
announcements.
Special Promotions
There are a number of special promotions
you can run to give your contact database a
boost in numbers.
r. Memberships and loyalty programs are
both a good way of capturing details and
communicating with your clients and
are also a great way of making your client
feel special and rewarding them for their
loyalty.
s. Competitions are a great way to give your
contact database an instant boost, as are
constant competitions which offer an ongoing competition entry for subscribing
or other action. However this is a very
popular medium so this is where you need
to use all of your creativity to find a prize
that promotes your brand and stands out
from the crowd.
t. Sampling is a very effective incentive if
your product has a competitive edge.
Offering free samples when people signup to your newsletter is a great incentive.
u. Mobile technology can help you collect
information in an off-line environment as
your audience can sms you their details.
o. Business card collections for lucky door
competitions that offer a prize which is
drawn during the event.
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Which collection tactics suit you?
The best way to get started is to identify
the tactics that are easy for you and to then
fine-tune and diversify these as you go.
When identifying which tactics are good for
your brand, consider the following questions:
For example:
What are your goals and objectives? How
will you know when you have reached
these?
e
j
Do you have the required resources/
infrastructure? And what are the
associated costs (if any)?
Do you or one of your team members
have the knowledge and ability required?
Is the collection tactic self-sustaining
or does it require your ongoing
management?
Can you use your current marketing
materials and subscribers to further boost
subscriptions?
Is there an obvious opportunity for you
to periodically or occasionally boost
subscriptions through campaigns,
incentives or special promotions?
c
s
How will you track and evaluate the
performance of various collection
methods?
q
e
j
k
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Maintain
When growing your database it is important
to keep in mind that it must be maintained.
A database can easily become ‘dirty’ when it
contains unsolicited, incorrect or duplicated
addresses.
For example:
Keeping these contacts on your database
can hurt your company’s delivery and
sender reputation.
There are a several ways to maintain your list:
Manage unsubscribers
A good Email Service Provider (ESP) will
keep a record of unsubscribers and prevent
you sending to them again.
Manage permanent and
temporary bounces
Permanent bounces (also know as hard
bounces) are emails which are wrong in some
way and will not be received by the contact.
This can be for a range of reasons including:
Incorrectly formatted or misspelt email
addresses.
Previously ‘hard bounced’ or unsubscribed
addresses.
Expired or invalid domains.
If you are unable to correct these records it
is recommended that you remove them from
your database.
Temporary bounces (also know as soft
bounces) are mostly the result of full email
inboxes and may be received by the contact
eventually. It is up to you to decide on a
case by case basis if it is worth keeping these
records.
Growing Your Database The Right Way
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Maintain
Manage inactive accounts
Have subscribers update their details
If certain subscribers never open your emails,
you may decide that they are uninterested in
your brand and therefore not of value to you.
However, if you are confident that some of
these subscribers may become active when a
promotion or special announcement
is sent then you may wish to keep these
contacts in your database.
By providing your subscribers with access
to their own details via ‘update your profile’
links or account pages you can encourage
subscribers to keep their own contact details
up to date. This is also a very useful tactic
for updating your subscribers preferences
and interests.
It may also be worth sending inactive
accounts a special offer to see if they are
reading the email but not clicking on links
or viewing images.
If you have a contact’s mobile number
consider having them update their details via
sms or unsubscribe by texting ‘stop’.
Conclusion
When building your database the best
approach is to start with small easy steps and
gradually evolve your strategy as you discover
what works the best for your brand.
The main thing to remember is there are
no hard and fast rules when growing your
database; every company is different and
therefore every database is different.
Alternatively, there are many ways to
quickly boost your database through special
promotions and campaigns which are
detailed in this whitepaper.
However, by taking the time to plan how
you will entice your audience, grow your
database over time, collect contacts and what
mechanisms you can put in place to maintain
your database you will be well on your way to
e-messaging success.
Growing Your Database The Right Way
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About Vision6
Vision6 is an Australian owned and run
company. We were founded in 2001 by
friends and colleagues Evan Fortune and
Mathew Myers.
Together they identified that marketing
professionals needed an easier way to create,
send and track email messages; and to
integrate e-messaging into the marketing
mix. As a result the duo formed Vision6.
From two guys in a tin-shed (well Mat’s living
room - close enough) we’ve grown to become
a team of more than 30 developers and
professionals.
Today, we are passionate about all things
e-messaging. We empower thousands of
businesses to achieve great marketing results.
And we are always on the lookout for new
ways to make our clients happy.
We also contribute to the marketing
community by writing whitepapers,
providing free training, producing the Email
Marketing Metrics Report and organising
Australia’s only email marketing summit
(EMSA).
Contact Vision6
for a free 30 day trial
ground floor 47 warner street fortitude valley qld 4006 australia
e [email protected] p +61 7 3257 3906 f +61 7 3257 3907
Growing Your Database The Right Way
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