Business-to-Business Internet Marketing, Fourth Edition - Lifecycle ...

106 BUSINESS-TO-BUSINESS INTERNET MARKETING
There are numerous other ways to build an e-mail list, such as making
promotional offers on your Web site, offering an e-mail alert service
or e-newsletter, asking for e-mail addresses in direct mail campaigns,
collecting e-mail addresses at trade shows, adding e-mail addresses via
online advertising and promotions, adding respondents from opt-in
e-mail campaigns, and viral marketing. We’ll discuss several of these in
further detail later. Whenever you add e-mail addresses to a database,
always make sure to separate “permission to e-mail” addresses from
“do not send e-mail” addresses.
As with traditional direct mail, once you build your own list, you
are likely to find that it will consistently out-perform any outside list, as
long as it is scrupulously maintained. E-mail house lists, as they are
called, can become a valuable and fertile marketing asset.
Opt-in E-mail
The rapidly increasing popularity of promotional e-mail has led to an
entire business of providing e-mail names for rental. However, list
availability is far more limited and typically doesn’t provide the
selectability of direct mail lists. Yet e-mail lists may be attractive if you
are looking to aggressively market your products and services at a relatively
low cost.
Rental e-mail lists are often referred to as opt-in lists, meaning that
the individuals on them have indicated in some way that they have given
permission to receive e-mail. Opt-in e-mail lists may sound like the acceptable
alternative to sending unsolicited e-mail, but keep in mind that
just because you are told these lists are opt-in, they may not always be
opt-in. It is essential to verify with any e-mail list owner or service that
any list being represented as opt-in is guaranteed to be just that. Additionally,
it is a good idea to verify the list owner or e-mail service’s
practices. The provider should have a written privacy policy and should
also be committed to the earlier referenced concept of permission e-mail.
Individuals on e-mail lists should always have the ability to opt out of
participation on any given list.
In many cases, e-mail list vendors do not release the actual e-mail
addresses on a list to third parties. Instead, you write a promotional
message (typically no more than 500 words), you give it to the e-mail
list vendor along with your list selections, and the vendor delivers the
e-mail to the recipients within two or three days. Depending on the list