Blocking And Tackling
Jul 28 2009
It has been on my mind awhile to start to restrict email addresses from our materials for some time now. I can tell you that I have yet to do it across our site(s) but I am going to start slowly testing it. Why? Well it all comes down to lead quality. In running reports looking at the value of leads, downloads, case study requests, and community those that are signing up with REAL business domain addresses are a higher value AND convert in a relationship/sales opportunity for us more often.
If you look at your own site(s) just how many leads come from hotmail, gmail, yahoo etc that actually end up being good sources or business for you? I know that some people prefer to use these as secondary emails instead of their business email address, but should that matter to you as a B to B company? The point is valid in B to C and I would never consider it for a business that has that audience.
It is a interesting proposition that I have asked many about in this industry. When do you stop allowing people to opt in based on YOUR business rules and when does the value of FREE change the cost to a company? I mean email is free right? So marketing should be too right? Wrong. Email might be “free” but email marketing is not. The costs of analytics, campaigns, design, rules, and developing programs that work cost. So does it cost to target people that are not going to be customers? I am hoping to find out with some simple tests.
This is more of an open thought post now as I don’t have the answers. But I am going to try and figure it out.
Have any of you tried this?
- Posted by Dylan Boyd
- @dtboyd
- at 7:36 AM
Published in B2B E-Mail Marketing, Behavioral Marketing, E-Mail Marketing, Email News
(4 votes, average: 2.75 out of 5)
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July 28th, 2009 at 11:23 am
I can certainly see the attraction of filtering. But I suspect, like many other beancounterish[1] inspired measures, that it may backfire (like it did for the person who’s already done this when I visited their site).
Why do I often use a semi-throwaway address when I’m forced to “register” when I want to download a whitepaper, or when I want to get an idea of price (which is oh so often conspicuously and missing on a site), or when I just simply want to find out more details which are missing or hard to find on a site?
Why oh why?
Because.
Because they almost never say how my email is going to be used (other than some kind of ineffectual “we’re not spammers; don’t worry!” kind of statement.
Because, time after time, I find myself starting to receive email I don’t want from “related” industry companies (I’m looking at you Oracle!).
Because, when I complain about such unsolicited, non-opt-in email I get much flack (from the “non-spammer”) that “well it was in my database,” or “well, it was in the fine print,” or “gosh, little old us just thought you’d be interested.”
So listen and listen well all you eMarketers reading this now: You’re spending all this money to grab my attention and get in my inbox to make some kind of impression. Try to keep in mind that in the end, it’s all about what *I* want, not what *YOU* want. You post clear and easily understandable policy and I’ll give you a real email. You don’t; I won’t! If I don’t like the policy I *MAY STILL* bestow upon you my throw-away account (and expect you to appreciate that) but don’t expect anything I check on a regular basis!
If I ever find someone is “forcing” me to use a “real” address instead of a freemail one you better believe I’ll click the “X” on that tab faster than a New York second. And ya gotta know I’ll tell all my friends to never go there either. Yup, all the ones that go to the same trade shows, attend all the same user groups, and inhabit all the same forums, mailing lists, and newsgroups.
You got that?
Good! Now do the right thing!
[1]Trying to improve some metric like number of conversions per buck spent by this kind of filtering makes about as much sense as the BSA who claims that billions are lost to software piracy per year when >90% of the pirates would never have bought the crap in the first place. Ask yourself, “will this filtering increase my sales?” Do you believe that in a sales relationship it is necessary to have some kind of contact on a regular basis? Do you think that the people you are selling to feel the same way? What percent? Are you considering that the people who DON’T buy now may say positive things to other people who MAY BUY later if they have a positive impression? What about people who don’t buy now but may buy later when they’re at a new job, have a bigger budget, etc…? Why is it that the low-conversion domains aren’t buying? Are they spamming you? Wasting your time? Really? How?
July 29th, 2009 at 1:04 am
Dylan,
I personally never sign up to an email list with my business address, I will always use my Gmail address for that. The reason is two-fold: 1. I want my business inbox to only contain messages from clients and partners and 2. when I change jobs, I don’t want to have to re-subscribe to everything…
I hate it when companies force me to subscribe with a business address, I will only do that when I really want to get my hands on that whitepaper and I will unsubscribe immediately when I’ve done that…
Just my 2 cents…
Tamara
July 29th, 2009 at 7:00 am
[...] Dylan Boyd at The Email Wars is considering this strategy and is looking for others who may have tried it in the past. [...]
July 29th, 2009 at 8:20 am
Hi Dylan,
I think this is a risky strategy. Whitepapers / newsletters / etc in the B2B market are all about building a relationship. My general purchasing behavior is 1st of all to sign up with my disposable address for an initial whitepaper or 2. If I like what I see and you’re producing good, useful content I may upgrade you to my real email address the next time I download something. I appreciate that I may then get some direct contact from the company and this may lead into a purchase. But the company is never going to get to that stage if they don’t let me use my disposable email first to vet how good the content is and become comfortable with the brand.
August 6th, 2009 at 11:01 am
Ditto – change the access and the goods offered on this site, and not only will I not buy, I’ll never engage with this site again. It will be dumpster for all saved emails, unsubscribe, and find someone else to engage with until I am in need of a related service or product. It just won’t ever be with eROI. What makes yall great is that there is a plethora of great knowledge, blogs, content, etc here and that’s why I keep coming back to eROI’s properties at least 2 or 3 times a week.
In time, I do think there will be a service you offer that we will want to purchase, but until then, keep yourselves top of mind like you do (with your great content, whtpapers,etc). It keeps me coming back until then.
August 6th, 2009 at 8:47 pm
Thanks. We are not doing it across the site. Just going to test it in a landing page or two to see what the impact is. Testing is important. We realize from our own DB that we could not ever block them out, but we want to try some tests to see the impact in some controlled situations.
Glad you like our posts and thanks for responding with your thoughts.