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So you want to run a Marketing Campaign?
With around 200 companies offering mailing lists in the UK, choosing the best option for your campaign can be a difficult one. This guide aims to help you through the maze, explaining terms used and offering advice to ensure that you get what you expect and your campaign starts off on the right foot.
Firstly, if you are interested in buying a list from Consulmax, you will be targetting businesses only. The laws on mailing lists are very clear on the difference and what you are permitted to do which each type of list. Consulmax focus exclusively on the business mailing list.
This guide focuses on business mailing lists and b2b marketing ie marketing campaigns to businesses.
In essence your marketing campaign can be driven in two directions; either market segments or geographical. The choice of direction is one for each individual business, and will be dependent on the products and services the business wants to offer in its marketing campaign.
When to select mailing lists by geography.
Obviously use this selection if your clients have to be local to you or if you are planning to invite people to an event (no use inviting finance directors in Edinburgh to a breakfast seminar in Manchester).
If you have a vast target market eg stationery or printing, then break down your target market geographically. Start with companies local to you and work your way outwards. If you sell something that requires a presentation during the purchasing process, buy a mailing list of companies based in the same area or along the same motorway eg companies along the Thames Valley corridor, so that you don’t waste time zig-zagging around the country.
When to select mailing lists by industry.
Use this option to tailor your marketing messages to specific sectors. Writing to financial services companies? Mention issues particular to them. Show your prospects that you understand their sector by referring to the specific problems they face (which you can help them solve) in your letter.
When to select mailing lists by job title.
In our opinion this is a key selection and one that is often overlooked by the inexperienced direct marketer. A common mistake is to write to the managing director and assume that he will pass your information down to the relevant person in the company. While this is a reasonable view when targeting companies of say, under 40 people, for larger firms (and it is larger firms who have the largest budgets) you need a more sophisticated approach. You need to think about which department in a company will buy your service and write directly to them. If you are not sure who buys in your product, look at the job titles of your current clients. And if your typical buyers span two departments you may need to send two mailshots eg accounting software can be bought by the finance director or the IT director, so mail both of them.
The most senior decision maker for a function does not always have a director job title. For example, many firms don’t have an IT professional sitting on the board; they have an IT manager who reports in to the finance director. You can ask a mailing list company to select IT directors and where there is no IT director, then an IT manager contact.
A word of warning on job titles; some mailing list providers offer the name of the person responsible for marketing or whatever function. This is not always a manager with a budget and in a small company might be a PA or an office manager. If you want a list of marketing managers, be sure to check that their job titles are just that.
On the other hand many companies do not have the job title you are looking for. Fleet managers, travel managers, diversity managers, sustainability managers, IT security – these are all functions that may have a dedicated person or may fall into someone else’s remit. Again, ask the mailing list provider to select, say diversity managers and where there are none, select HR director.
When to select mailing lists by company size.
Company size can mean by annual sales (turnover) or by number of employees. Choose one, whichever is more relevant to your product. Selling anything that impacts on employees, eg HR, training or health & safety services, use the size by employees numbers. For marketing or financial services, annual sales figures are more relevant.
If you have used the job title selection to choose say HR managers, you can be pretty sure that an HR manager will not be employed in a company with under 20 employees, the work will be covered by line managers or a general administrator. But if you are targeting managing directors, then use by company size. Every company has an MD, but there aren’t too many campaigns that can justify targeting all of them.
Some companies do not publish their UK annual sales figures, they bundle them into a Europe-wide or worldwide figure. So by selecting by annual turnover, you might miss out on some worldwide brands, because if an accurate UK figure is not available, our database will show the turnover as 0.
Also if you are looking to target companies by employee size and industry sector remember that the companies employing thousands of staff are in retailing, catering, financial services and other service sectors. Manufacturers have outsourced to the Far East and have kept just the head office staff in the UK. If you need organisations with a lot of people, try the public sector. It is an oft quoted fact that the NHS is Europe’s biggest employer; government departments and local councils employ thousands of staff too.
Some key facts to remember when buying a mailing list
Two-thirds of UK companies are based in London and the South East.
The public sector is the largest employer in the UK; government departments, local councils, police forces, colleges and of course the NHS.
There are 4.4 million SMEs in the UK and 95% of them have fewer than 10 employees. A small business is defined as having up to 49 employees, a medium business 50-249 employees. In 2000, it was estimated that there were 25,000 medium-sized businesses.
Worldwide companies may have a huge brand presence in the UK, but if their European head office is in Paris (Apple), Brussels (VF – Lee & Wrangler jeans) or Dublin (Dell, Ryanair), they may have only a small sales and marketing team in the UK. Decisions on HR, legal, IT and finance services are taken overseas. All marketers should understand why British governments spend huge amounts attracting companies to base their European head offices in UK.
What we are trying to get across with these facts is that your dream list may not exist.
Use data while it is fresh.
Only buy data that you can use within the next couple of weeks. Good data providers can supply a mailing list within hours by email so there is no need to buy in data weeks in advance. You can get the quotes in from suppliers, test a sample and select the mailing list, but don’t buy mailing data until you are ready to use it. And be realistic about how much data you can use. If you buy a list of 3,000 marketing managers intending to telephone all of them, make sure you have the staff on hand to make the phonecalls.
Data Decay.
Business data decays by 30% a year, which means that after six months, 15% of the records on your mailing list will be wrong, which might mean that 15% of your print and postage budget will be wasted on mailing people who have left the company and companies which have relocated.
Buying a Mailing List.
So now that you know what you want, these are the questions you should be asking to make sure you get what you want:
Ask to see a sample of the data.
Consulmax will email or fax you a sample of 10-20 contacts from your selected list along with a price and an order form. If a list supplier gives you a verbal quote over the phone and asks you for your credit card, you must be firm and ask for the price, a sample of the data and the terms of the rental. You can then phone a few of the contacts on the sample and check the accuracy of the list.
Hidden Costs – get a total price before you order
The base cost might be 10p per name, but that might not include phone numbers, email addresses, selections and sometimes even named contacts are added extras. If you want company data such as employee numbers, that could be extra too. Delivery, even by email and charged per file sent, can be another add on.
Single Use or Multi-Use
This will affect the price. Buy single use and you will not be able to re-mail the mailing list or do telephone follow-ups. Pay extra for multi-use and there is usually a time limit of 6 months or one year. All Consulmax mailing lists are offered for multiple use for 12 months.
How often is the list updated?
This is a key question and one all list companies are ready for. Watch out for the weasel words every day. This can mean that a couple of hundred changes are made to the mailing list database of two million contacts every day, which is not enough to maintain two million records. Or it can mean that the database is updated every day as part of an ongoing maintenance cycle. You need to dig a little deeper and ask how often the entire database is updated and what the method is. Some companies telephone the database every four months, six months, twelve months. Others write to every contact once year (usual for magazine subscriber lists) and others just use the returned gone-away envelopes, the Royal Mail suppression file for companies that have moved offices (generally a few months out of date) and Companies House file of companies that have been disbanded.
The Myth of TPS/MPS/FPS.
Some list companies will trumpet that their lists are cleaned against these three files. We need to be clear, Telephone Preference Service does not apply to business lists, unless you are targeting sole traders and partnerships. Mailing Preference Service does not apply to business lists. Fax Preference Service is only relevant if you are buying fax numbers and we think the fax-shot is something of a dying art.
CTPS – Corporate Telephone Preference Service.
This is the only suppression file that business mailing lists are required to be cleaned against. And even then, if a company is registered with the CTPS, it means that you cannot telephone them with a sales proposition. You can mail them and email them. You can telephone them for research purposes only. If you are buying a mailing list for telemarketing, insist that you do not buy any numbers that are registered with the CTPS as you will not be able to use them.
So you have your list of businesses either by Market sector or Geographical. Now what do you do with it?
Mailshots
If you are putting a mailing campaign together in-house, without any bought-in expertise, here are a few tips on making your mailer more responsive.
The Letter
Whatever you are sending, be it a brochure, a product sample or a leaflet, always enclose a letter. Use the letter to:
- introduce yourself
- highlight the main benefits of your product/service
- guide the prospect to the contents of the envelope eg see the enclosed brochure for details
- alert the prospect to the response mechanism eg phone XXXX to order or fill out the enclosed order form
1 Personalise – if you have a list of named contacts, then personalise the letter: Dear Mr Smith is better than Dear Sir/Madam. If you do not have got the name of your recipient, then Dear Marketing Professional or Dear Stationery Buyer is OK, but it is probably better not to use the Dear – at all.
2 Headline – a person casually glancing at a piece of paper will look at the headline at the top and the PS at the bottom. Make sure your headline grabs their attention. If you are running a promotion the word FREE or SAVE ££ works well. Or you can offer a solution to a problem.
3 Body Copy – Try to tell a story. If you have captured the target’s attention, your job now is to keep it. Use short sentences. Use short paragraphs. Use joining words to begin each paragraph so that it is not easy for the target to stop reading eg
Moreover
And that’s not all
Plus, we offer you
What’s more
As well as
In addition
Overuse the word YOU to communicate the benefits to the target eg
you will receive
you will find
you will be able to
you will discover
we offer you
you can see
we help you
you might like to
Use bullet points to break up the letter visually and to highlight key benefits succinctly.
Use underlining, emboldening, different type faces. All these typographical tricks will catch the eye of the casual reader, as his eye travels from headline to PS and possibly, back up to the body of the letter.
4. Towards The End - make sure you have a call to action. You must tell the reader what they must do next be it phone you, fill out the form, send an email, look at your website. You can offer an incentive such as a free sample, a gift or money off if they respond quickly. Make sure you can afford the incentive by capping it eg first 20 orders get a free CD.
5 The PS - After you have signed off always use a PS and if there is room a PPS. Use it to communicate your key benefit or your call to action eg PS If you want your leaders to get better at leading, call us today.
The Response Mechanism.
Make sure your mailing piece has a response mechanism and that the target is given clear instruction as to what to do next eg phone now, fax back the enquiry sheet, fill out the order form. It might seem obvious to you but make sure you tell the prospect what you would like them to do next in the letter. Response mechanisms can be:
An order form – which should ask for all the information you need to process the order – name, address, phone number, email, payment details (will you invoice or must they send payment? – ask if there is a separate billing address and leave a space for the purchase order number to remind those that need them to get one, to ensure that their accounts department will pay you).
Enquiry sheet - this is useful for high value projects or consultancy which require a meeting or a phone call. It gives the target the option to say yes, I’m interested but not quite now. It can give options such as
Please call me now
Please call me in 6 weeks time
Please call me in 3 months
Please call me in 6 months
It gives you a diary of phone appointments with interested parties.
Phone call – if you want them to call you, make sure your phone number is emblazoned across the mailer and make sure there is always someone there to answer the phone. You should always enclose a form of some kind as this also gives you another chance to sell your company to the reader. If you have ever received something from Reader’s Digest, think about all the bits of paper that tumble out of their envelopes. They have been using direct mail for some years, so on the grounds that they must know what they are doing, enclose as many items in your envelope as space and postage allow.
The Envelope.
Your envelope must have a return address. The Post Office no longer opens undelivered business mail to return it to the sender. If there is no return address on the envelope, it goes in the Royal Mail bins and you may keep on mailing the target, wasting money on postage and brochures.
If you are paying a printer to put your address on the envelope, then it costs only the typesetting fee to add an envelope message to encourage the reader to open it.
Something that will appeal to a wide range of people. Again the word FREE will increase the number of people who open the envelope. Or ask a question that no businessman can say no to eg Do you want to improve your company’s performance?
Emails
1. The Law.
The law is very clear when it comes to emailing businesses.
First off you must only email businesses on business related matters;
Secondly, you must send the e-mail from a valid e-mail address that is managed;
Thirdly, you must give the recipient an easy and clear method to unsubscribe themselves from your list; and finally, your email must include your full business address.
If you adhere to the above points and carry them out when requested, then you will be working within the law. If you choose to disregard these points then you will be opening yourself up for a serious fine and potentially imprisonment.
2. Technology.
Technology is always moving forward, and in the area of spam e-mails, this is no exception. To have an effective e-mail campaign you must consider three things:
- You must regularly validate your data to ensure the e-mail address is correct and if it is not correct remove it from your database. If you regularly send e-mails that bounce back, your ISP will possibly regard you as a spammer and block your account.
- Ask your ISP about how many e-mails you can send in any set period. Most ISP will limit the speed you can send e-mails so the server your site is on will not be overworked and therefore limiting the uses for the other sites on the server. Your ISP will likely tell you the number of e-mails you can send per batch and the time gap between each batch. Input those figures into your software. Again, you run the risk of your ISP blocking your account if you disregard this.
- Consider which type of e-mail software to use. Spam filters are becoming very adept at spotting what they believe to be spam. After all, that is their job! They tend to err on caution and if in doubt, it is spam. We have found from experience that the correct software can increase the chance of your message arriving at the recipient by as much as 40%. We can tell you that Microsoft Outlook is not that software. We will happily discuss our findings and suggestions with you if you wish to contact us.
- Finally, get a message checker. In conjunction with the correct software, getting a software to assess the e-mail you want to send to see how highly it scores on the spam ratings will also help. I am sure you can guess what type of words and message score highly here, but it is always worth checking.
3. Consider getting an autoresponder.
Regular communication with your potential customers is vital. It has been suggested that it takes on average 4 different pieces of communication with a prospect before they feel confident enough to make a purchase. An auto responder can significantly help with this. It can be set up to send different e-mails depending on the content of the subject box on an e-mail you receive. This can make initial communication with your prospects smooth and efficient.
4. Be consistent with your contact.
Good e-mail marketing software can be set to send messages in advance. If you can be known as the company that makes regular contact with your prospects and it is fresh and relevant, you will more likely be seen as a reliable and viable supplier. Set your messages to be in inboxes at the same time ever week. Keep the offering exciting, up to date and new.
Results
Remember to keep a record of your results. How many orders did the mailing generate, how many appointments, enquiries, phone calls. Listen to your prospects when you speak to them. Did they understand the mailing and did they know how to respond? Were they the right people to mail or did they pass your mailer up the corporate ladder, sideways to another department or down to a subordinate. Make note of all comments and incorporate them into your next mailing campaign.
One of the best things about direct marketing is that different creative approaches can be tested. So if you have two ideas, try one out on a small proportion of the list and if response is poor ie less than 2%, try the other idea on a second batch.
Remember that re-mailing the same list often works well, as long as you are careful to remove the people who have already responded. Consulmax does not charge you for re-mailing a list and if your list is under six months old, you can get an updated version of it at a 75% discount.
If you get a great response and you are really pleased with your list, please drop us a line so that we can use your comments on our website. |
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