Most studies agree that your email list will suffer an annual 30% attrition rate. If you hope to grow your list by, say, 20% a year, added with attrition, you now need a leadgen program that will net you 50% new names per year. We are all looking for innovative and creative paths to growing our list and while we’ve published a few eBooks on the topic with myriad fodder, our best efforts have consistently come from those that include direct mail.
As most of you know, renting, purchasing, borrowing, and partnering in order to email clients in a leadgen effort is fraught with risks ranging from simply annoying your customers to losing sending privileges through your ESP. Though most of us claim that a mailbox full of junk mail is akin to an inbox full of spam, the effort it takes to remove oneself from a direct-mail list just seems too burdensome for most of us and we will continue to allow a company to burn through paper and postage despite our complete lack of interest in their message well beyond our initial feelings of annoyance. Whereas with email, the spam button, unsubscribe link, or reply email is simply far too easy and thus instills in us extreme power and often unwarranted indignation when a brand should dare email us any type of unsolicited content. We’re not only quick to unsubscribe, if it happens again, we’re likely to fire off an irate email and even go so far as to report them to their ISP or ESP. This can cause permanent damage to the brand and inhibit their ability to send future emails.
Given these risks, we’ve found that the best way to approach leadgen is through the combined use of print and email. Rather than hazard the acquisition of a list of persons who did not specifically subscribe to receive our messages, Spider Trainers counsels clients to purchase the same list selects as a direct-mail list and forgo the email address — we will collect this later. Direct-mail lists are typically less or even much less costly than an email list and this cost savings can be applied toward the postage and printing costs of a direct mail.
The direct-mail piece is used to entice engagement through the use of a high-value offer that drives traffic to a targeted squeeze page and in many cases, from there to a microsite focused either on introducing the brand or introducing the product, depending upon how recognizable the brand to the audience.
FruitRevival (a company providing recurring fresh-fruit delivery to Denver businesses), is in the process of launching just such a campaign. Spider Trainers has created a square postcard[1] for their list segmented as: newly rented direct-mail names, customers who have purchased a fruit gift box, and customers who have received a fruit gift box. Three different headlines and matching copy provide an A/B testing platform along with a CTA for a free sample box delivered to themselves or to a person they choose.
Using this high-value CTA, FruitRevival hopes to attract the postcard recipients to their squeeze page where they will collect their email address as well as responses to five very simple questions. Lead scoring of responses will flag recipients ready for immediate sales follow-up (high scorers), move them into an active nurturing campaign (mid-range scorers), or drop them into the drip campaign (low scorers).
Keep your eye on two big rocks: the higher the value of the gift, the higher the conversion rate, and the more focused your list, the more likely the audience will be receptive to the offer. With the right combination, you can easily far surpass the engagement rates you will get with an email list that has not specifically opted in to your messages.
[1] We have found that square postcards have a measurably higher engagement rate.
