What Information Do You Need to Put Effective Mailing Lists Together

Marketing Sherpa this week as part of its weekly chart showed the results of its Email Marketing Benchmark Study that asked 347 businesses what information they would typically try to obtain from customers as the basis for putting a mailing list together.

Not surprisingly all the businesses required the customers email address which is obviously the means by which the business would communicate with them. What was surprising was that only 70 percent of the same sample required that the respondents also provide their names.

Beyond these first two fields, the remaining fields quickly dip and were only mandatory for 35% or less  of the respondents. 

The reality is people don't like giving away too much information when they don't have to so the lesson here as witnessed by the results of the study, is that the business should initially only seek minimum amount of data (i.e. email and name).

Once this initial stage is successfully completed, the other desirable data fields can be asked for and obtained at a later point, as the relationship continues and is consolidated.

So to effectively build mailing lists, remind yourself of the words of that famous Frank Sinatra song, 'Nice and easy does it every time.'

And until next time, good luck and good marketing.

Regards,
Daniele.