Sometimes free shipping and a coupon in return for consumer data doesn’t cut it: Marketers need to ask for little and kick back a lot if people are going to share personal information.
These observations are part of a series of white papers, the first released yesterday, by The Council for Responsible E-Mail, a subsidiary of the Association for Interactive Media. The booklet aggregates and distills the knowledge of prominent players in the email industry as a resource for best practices for email marketing, said Ben Isaacson, executive director of AIM. Some examples include:
* MediaMessage’s Derek Scruggs, a permission advocate, weighs in with thoughts on adding value to permission, viral campaigns, frequency of contact, personalization and handling message bounces and unsubscribe requests. Scruggs cites Amazon.com’s use of opt-in notification when items of interest become available. And BabyCenter.com offers mothers a developmental newsletter in return for the baby’s due or birth date.
* Steve Leighton vice president of marketing services for Fingerhut Cos Inc. discusses collecting e-mail addresses and customer information. Ask only for information that is relevant at sign-up; offer the potential to complete the registration process at a later date after collecting name and e-mail address, Leighton said.
* Frank Quaranta, director of media services of Millard Interactive, covers tying offline promotions to e-marketing and generating list rental revenue. o On the prospecting side, Ian Oxman, president of Chooseyourmail.com, discusses the questions marketers should ask before renting electronic addresses. Check the source, ownership, and volume of the list’s use before renting names, he said.
* Kate Hudson of Shoedini offers the virtues of testing and measuring return on campaigns.
The report is the first of a series AIM will be releasing intermittently
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