EightBlack.

A colleague sent me an email today.

I laughed when I received it on my BlackBerry.

You see - we’re about to embark on a project for a client that involves email marketing. I wanted to know how big their email lists were - both in terms of how many prospects and how many existing customers.

The answer was as follows:

Purchaser email count = 2231 (all purchaser records)

Prospect email count = 8467 (prospects since 01/Jun/05)

You see this client is a publicly traded company here in Australia.

It’s parent is in Singapore. Their market cap is A$1.8 billion.

Total staff - in excess of 650.

They have deep pockets when it comes to marketing. Very deep.

But would you believe that with all this marketing muscle, they only have amassed a little over ten and half thousand email records.

Woeful.

This is a company that sells something that we all need.

People are hunting via the search engines for their very key words.

Their prospects (and existing customers) actually really do want what this company sells.

But because they are deeply entrenched in old school marketing - and have been brainwashed with “it’s all about the brand” they forgot about something called the internet.

And email.

If you think email marketing is dead because of spam, then think again.

It’s still the cheapest and most efficient method hands down.

And coupled with “effective” above the line marketing strategies, including direct response and the right telephone acquisition techniques, email can be a proven winner.

One to one marketing is the future.

And there is no better facilitator than the internet.

So, if you’re a big corporate and you dont have the basics like the email address of each and every customer, then you really need to question what the hell has your marketing department been doing for so long.

Customers (and prospects) really will give you their email details on the proviso that:

1. You dont breach their trust and sell their details to someone else (obvious)
2. You dont cram offer after offer down their throats.
3. You deliver them content. And keep delivering it.
4. You talk with them personally (ie address them by name in the email)
5. You take their feedback seriously.

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This entry was posted on Monday, June 5th, 2006 at 9:56 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.