Apemag

  • Home
  • Whitepapers
  • Categories
    • Email marketing
    • Personalization
    • Targeting
    • Trends
  • Contact
Uncategorized

10 elements to check when building your mailing list

… in order to make sure you don’t show your contacts a big blooper. We got a real fail in our inbox this week. In response to the elections newspaper “De Tijd” wanted to promp their contacts to visit the website. And something went wrong there.
blooper_mei_2014
To make the content as relevant as possible, De Tijd diversified their email message based on the data in their database. A contact received a beautiful message where he is asked to find out how the voting behavior of his city matched the voting behavior of Flanders (Belgium). How does Susteren compare to the voting behavior of Flanders? The only problem is that the city Susteren isn’t located in Flanders, but in The Netherlands. Didn’t they take country into account when they made their selection? Or don’t they include country in their database?

10 elements of a comprehensive database

Besides country there are a lot of extra elements that you need to take into account to build a strong and effective list. We put some examples in a list…

  1. Try to collect a name and first name for every email address in your list. That way you can prevent your salutation from missing the point.
  2. Pay attention to the gender of your contacts. That will come in handy when you’re sending messages for Father’s Day or Mother’s Day.
  3. Are you also trying to collect the postal code, city and/or country for every email address? That way you can send out correct regional campaigns. De Tijd went wrong there.
  4. Are you also asking for the birthday of your contacts? You can get an extra conversion by sending a discount coupon or code with anniversaries.
  5. Do you collect the physical address of your email contacts? Interesting to combine online and offline for a specific campaign. Then you want to make sure to drop your postal mailing in the correct letter box. From mary_14@provider.com you can’t really get any hints.
  6. Are you asking your contacts for their preferences or interests? I won’t be interested in nursery room decoration when my son is 17 years old. If you haven’t collected their interests at subscription, you can always ask them to update their preferences via a landing page. The more you know, the more relevant your segmentation will be.
  7. Are you collecting special or meaningful dates to trigger automated campaigns? And we’re not talking about birthdays again. Age of children, wedding anniversary, maintenance of the car, the moment you book a vacation, …
  8. Are you also collecting the purchase history of your clients? That could be very interesting for segmentation and upselling as well.
  9. Put the most recent purchasing date in a separate field. It will teach you how recent a client was active. Interesting information if you’re planning a reactivation campaign.
  10. The last purchase is also the most interesting one, because it’s the purchase they are most likely to remember. So you best collect that information in a field in your database as well. Ideal for quick upselling campaigns without complicated selections.

Another extra tip

These ten tips will help you build a comprehensive mailing list. If you use this wisely, you can create almost every segmentation possibility. But you have to think about it carefully!

Are you collecting other data in your database? We love to hear about it, to make our list even better!

May 30, 2014Ann Flipkens
Previous storyCenter Parcs goes for higher conversion in BritainNext story10 elements of a great welcome message
Home 10 elements to check when building your mailing list
9 years ago Uncategorized420
Ann Flipkens
Twitter
The best content directly in your inbox

Get notifications for new blog articles or subscribe for your GDPR communication!

Recente posts
  • Adapting your marketing efforts to COVID-19, now and tomorrow 14 May 2020
  • Communicating in times of crisis 20 March 2020
  • “It’s a salesting”, come again? 1 March 2019
  • The real estate industry: Building your client base using email marketing 23 May 2018
  • The tourism industry: A ray of sunshine in your mailbox 2 May 2018
  You Might Also Like  
Strategy

Don’t get blinded by reading rates, focus on viewing rates as well!

In email marketing, we always look at the statistics. We calculate the success of the campaign primarily based on the open rate, and the click rate. But aren’t we focusing too much on those reading rates? Dec 4, 2014Michelle Dassen

Communicating clearly in 3 simple steps

In the blog we already highlighted the trend where simplicity prevails on many occasions. Today we found another great example. The Galeria Inno email that landed in our inbox was clearly meant to seduce… Feb 13, 2015Ann Flipkens

Strategy

Ten critical notes – with improvements – on a reactivation email

We’ve all met them, clients that are no longer engaged. They are no longer generating revenue and aren’t showing up in your shop anymore. With email marketing you can easily compose a message to wake up those hibernating clients. That’s what Ibis Hotels did right before the summer started. Jun 27, 2014Ann Flipkens

Three powerful strategies to convince your client

The ‘principles of persuasion’ of psychology professor Robert Cialdini is interesting reading material for marketeers. To give you a brief summary, the book talks about 6 principles that you can use to convince someone to take action. In this blog post we discuss the first three principles and give you tips to use them online! […]

Email marketing, Strategy, Surveys, Trends

The quality of the list is paramount!

Which strategy are you using when it comes to your email marketing list? That is the subject of the research that has been conducted in the first week of January by the American Ascend. Hot of the press and soon this will be matter to compare with the Belgian email barometer. Jan 22, 2016Ann Flipkens

Strategy

Automated service email, 10 times right!

Email doesn’t always need to be a part of a large marketing campaign. When you take a look at all the automatic emails that are sent to clients and prospects, you’ll see that there are a lot of optimization opportunities. A sale in your store is the ideal moment to transfer from offline to online. […]

Cases, Inspiration!, Strategy, Tips, Trends

An integrated offline and online communication at Nespresso

Nespresso has clearly remembered one classic statement in our digital world. Online doesn’t go without offline. Today they have executed that strategy into a double campaign. One through email marketing and one via good old auntie print mail. Sep 4, 2015Michelle Dassen

Content, Email marketing, How to start with email marketing, Personalization, Strategy, Targeting, Trends

The transformation of email marketing to marketing automation

A modern marketer knows only too well that his customers are not identical. Why then send out a campaign that is not tailored to each individual? Sending the same message to all your contacts is not always the best approach. Don’t we all want to create campaigns that increase the open rate and maximize conversions? […]

Most Viewed
2,090

More subscriptions, less unsubscriptions: razor sharp e-commerce of Dollar Shave Club

1,540

10 tips to integrate a promo code in your email marketing

1,468

An integrated offline and online communication at Nespresso

1,353

Bloopers you can avoid

1,207

Was this useful?

1,170

11 ideas to improve your opt-in form

1,072

The future of email marketing (II)

1,063

10 elements of a great welcome message

2018 © Flexmail