September 19th, 2006

Choosing the right email lists

Our other services have caught up in the last year or so, especially search engine marketing, and most recently consulting, co-registration and affiliate marketing — still, we’ve run more email campaigns for our clients than anything else over our history.

During that time, I’ve been our main email guy, personally planning, managing and executing many dozens, if not hundreds, of these campaigns.

I’ve come to learn that choosing the right email lists for your campaign is one of the most critical components of a successful campaign.

A recent article on choosing email lists by Jeanniey Mullen on ClickZ gives some great tips in this regard, including listing the “various ways to select a target list: behavioral targeting, demographic matching, data overlays, competitive segmenting, and even the more recent e-mail trend, lifestyle targeting.” As she rightly points out, which approach works best depends on the campaign’s goal.

For acquisition efforts, what our mostly small and mid-size clients usually request of us, she recommends lifestyle targeting. This method reaches an audience where they work and live, as opposed to demographics, for example. It’s somewhat similar to psychographics which looks at an audience’s mindset and what makes them buy certain types of products or do business with certain types of organizations.

In our case, because of our niche and the types of clients we serve, that means looking at our clients’ objectives in regards to the green, conscious, LOHAS, cultural creative consumer (yes, these terms are more-or-less synonyms and no, LOHAS is not a Hawaiin greeting, but stands for lifestyles of health and sustainability).

I never make list buys based on demographics — in fact, I routinely ignore media kits sent to me with that information. Instead, I look at political orientation, interests in charities, environmental mindset, spiritual orientation, interests in health & wellness, etc.

For email newsletter ads, it’s even more difficult than for email solos/blasts. Here are just a few questions I ask before doing business with new newsletters, which informs not only whether I’m willing to advertise, but how much I’m willing to pay:

• In what form can you advertise – text, graphics, or a combination? (Text is often the better choice if limited to one). What are the specifications – number of words, graphic pixel dimensions, etc.?
• Where, within the newsletter, are ad(s) placed? Top, middle, bottom; left or right sides? (The higher and to the left or middle, the better).
• What’s the average issue open rate?
• What’s the average, or range, of click through rates? Conversions?
• Can I see the subscription form(s) that people used to subscribe?
• What offers worked best in this newsletter in the past? Which sponsors have been repeat customers?

Do your homework, pick your lists well, and you’re halfway to running a successful email campaign.