I want to optimize the use of our contact lists in the long term: what is the state of the art for that? #Q&A

By Zeeva Viola | May 24, 2017

Question:

I work in a very big company with dozens of products, we run many campaigns every year and I want to look at how best to share and manage these campaigns so that our customers aren’t contacted many times uselessly, or become “contact weary”. How?

Answer:

Add value every time you contact your list. This means that your outbound message must include useful content and ideas.

A few specific ideas:

1. “Top 5” lists and Ideas to help your targets improve their business. This is tactic used by bloggers for page view. Employ this same strategy in your outbound emails.
2. Offer free webinars around industry topics that your contacts will find interesting. This is NOT a webinar all about your product. For example, if you’re selling biomedical devices you can plan a 15-minute webcast around proposed legislation and its potential effect on the biomedical industry, new innovations, or recent publications around related topics.
3. Summarize industry articles from unusual sources. For example, if you’re selling a CRM tool, find articles in places like Wired, Harvard Business Review, or Psychology Today that your contacts may not be reading everyday. Bring new ideas and comment on how they relate to your customers to show your commitment to your industry.

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Separately, on the structural side, establish tags in your CRM so that you have different lists based on who you contacted and why. There are several excellent plug-ins to Salesforce and email marketing tools that enable you to do this  easily. Then, send on a regular schedule. If you’re sending haphazardly, then prospects that do open your emails won’t know when to look for your emails. Personally, I subscribe to four email newsletters that arrive to my inbox early AM. I read them every morning. Anything outside of that usually gets deleted or ignored.

• On the technical side, use an email marketing tool that enables you to track open rates and click-throughs so you can see how you’re doing. Sounds basic, but too many companies “spray and pray.” You have to know what’s working. If you’re consistently getting low open rates, then change your approach.

**This Q&A article was originally posted on Quora. Check out Scott’s Quora page here.