Know-How Exchange : E-Marketing

Email marketing success begins and ends with one thing: a good list.

We've been in the email marketing business for ten years. We've seen it work for clients; we've seen it fail.

Email seems to work best when the people on your list know who you are and have some interest in what you're offering.

On the one end of the spectrum, you have rented email lists, which, unless you are a national brand name, I think are bound to fail most times in a consumer environment, especially with paid offers. They can work on occasion in a business environment, but more likely in a lead-generation capacity.

On the other end of the spectrum is your house list that you develop on your own. This is the best list you can have because you know the people are real, they are interested, they can be segmented and personalized, and they want to hear from you. I'd rather have a list of 1,000 pure opt ins with the contact's data than a list of 1 million or 5 million random email addresses.

Somewhere in the middle is the grey area of opt out, where people amass an email list through covert means such as purchasing lists, gathering them from the Web, etc.

I will say that I've seen these lists work for people (I know the purists will hate that) with great success, provided that the offers are relevant, the list is not overmailed, the creative is professional, and remove requests are processed immediately.

Email marketing has its place in just about every business.