Monday, May 14, 2007

Get Rid of Your Marketing Database Deadbeats

If you have a marketing database you probably have something in there that is like a cancerous tumor. It's what I call the "database deadbeats". Database deadbeats are what I refer to those contacts who are in your database but are really useless - they don't return to your website, open your emails, register for webinars or buy your products anymore. They take up room and bring your response rates down.

What CBS Sportsline did it to its Database Deadbeats

CBS realized that these database fungi were doing nothing for their email success rates and it gave them one opportunity to confirm if they wanted to receive emails from Sportsline and then deleted them from if no response was provided. As reported by MarketingVOX "The move was made to create a more engaged and active recipient pool after discovering that the high volume of emails was diluting its brand instead of building equity."

While you may not want to be as cut throat (you may want to give people 2-3 chances to opt back in), you need to take a good look at your database and create segments that are not solely based on say vertical or demographic information but also based on activity. Consider sending different call to actions to those who have not expressed any interest in any of your recent email campaigns or visited your website in the last few months. This can include a survey in which you ask them what they want to receive or if you should just remove them all together.

Why do I Need to do Anything? They'll just Unsubscribe if They are not Interested

You may be saying "if these are not interested in receiving our emails, they will probably just unsubscribe ". However, that's not the case as some email recipients are scared to unsubscribe as it may be used against them (it confirms they exist) while others can't be bothered and will just delete your email. Even worse, some may report you as spam. It may be time to say adios to your database deadbeats before your database becomes a mess of data that no one has any faith in.

The cleaner your database, the better response you will receive and the more your confidence your marketing and sales teams will have with it.

Chad H.

2 comments:

editor said...

E-mail marketing is going through a bit of a dip for the moment, and working the numbers up is only going to reduce open rates and clickthrough rates even further. It's really time to use e-mail marketing more as a customer relation management tool, and work on getting higher open rates.

Chad said...

Thanks for your comment. I guess it depends on your region. Email can definitely be effective for more then customer communication. I see it to be extremely effective for nurturing prospects who are interested in your offerings but not yet ready to buy. Automating this process is the key.

ShareThis

LinkWithin

Related Posts Widget for Blogs by LinkWithin