Collective Email Wisdom: Getting People to Provide an Email Address

November 15, 2007

Thomas S Kraemer writes: Email is a great medium for marketing. The area that I'm trying to crack is how to get people to provide their email address with permission for us to market to them so we can reach them through this efficient medium. What are some ways you have found to get the reluctant email provider to give you his or her email address for promotional purposes?

The eec community had this advice:

Jeanniey Mullen responded: The first rule of thumb is that people need to understand what's in it for them— in return for their email and permission, what will they get? The benefits needs to be material and clearly spelled out. Some of the ways that seems to work well for many groups are: transactional or service message opt-in opportunities, direct mail postcards, call center capture and in some cases online sweepstakes or polls.

Bryan Eisenberg responded: The key to getting email address from people is to understand that you are in an exchange of value. Not only to they need to get a good sense of what the future value of your relationship will be but what will the present exchange bring to them. If you can offer some immediate benefit—a small report, ebook, or something similar—you may give them additional incentive to provide an email address. All be clear with people about the frequency and type of content they will get helps.

Matthew Gordon responded: In my experience it is also important not to ask for too much information to begin with, region, age, sex, etc. Keep it simple: Name and email address. After you have established and created a relationship of trust with the recipient can you then request further information.

Read the rest of the responses and share advice of your own by visiting the Email Experience Council’s Facebook discussion board. Other topics currently being discussed include “Rendering on BlackBerries.”

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Comments (0) | Posted on November 15, 2007 4:01 PM

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the voices of email

The Email Experience Council's membership includes many of the brightest and most committed email marketing experts. We're pleased to have some of them share their insights here on these pages. Our blog contributors include:

Elie Ashery is the president and CEO of Gold Lasso, and is responsible for the company’s vision and strategy execution. Before joining Gold Lasso, he co-founded Newsletters.com in 1997, selling it to The Tribune Cos. in 2000. He then worked for IncenSoft, focusing on email marketing while there. Read more.

Amy Bills is the senior manager of field marketing at lead optimization company Bulldog Solutions. She is responsible for lead generation and the go-to-market execution of Bulldog's new products and initiatives. Amy was previously the editorial team leader of Freescale Semiconductor’s internal creative agency and a senior editor at Hoover’s Online. Read more.

Nicholas Einstein is director of strategic and analytic services at Datran Media. Specializing in email and CRM strategy, he helps some of America’s top brands leverage online channels to communicate more effectively with their customers and prospects.

Lisa Harmon is a principal at Smith-Harmon, a creative services consultancy dedicated to email marketing strategy and production. She works with marketers to increase clickthrough, maximize revenue, and infuse delight into their email creative. Lisa is also the blogger behind edm.smith-harmon.com, an ongoing commentary on the best (and worst!) in email marketing creative. Read more.

Chip House is ExactTarget's VP of marketing services, leading the teams responsible for client success. He was named to BtoB Magazine’s 2005 “Who’s Who in B-To-B,” for being a vocal proponent of legitimate commercial email and an active lobbyist regarding spam and privacy issues. Read more.

Stephanie Miller is VP of strategic services for Return Path, the leading email performance company. She works with marketers to earn a higher ROI and response from their acquisition and retention email programs—developing content, contact and segmentation strategies, along with testing, measurement and production programs. Read more.

Jeanniey Mullen is the eec’s founder and the global EVP and CMO of global online publishing company Zinio. She is a thought leader and visionary in the email and digital marketing field. A columnist for ClickZ, she has published numerous papers and is a frequent speaker. Read more.

Charles Stiles is the VP of worldwide business development at Goodmail Systems. In his role, Charles is focused on helping generate a better understanding of the email environment and potential solutions for a better consumer experience. He currently serves as the chairman for the Messaging Anti-Abuse Work Group. Read more.

DJ Waldow is an account manager at Bronto Software. He works with Bronto’s largest clients to help them achieve and surpass their marketing goals. An active member of the email marketing community, DJ posts regularly on the Email Marketer’s Club, publishes a bi-weekly email marketing best practices newsletter, and films BrontoFire. Read more.

Chad White is the EEC’s director of retail insights and editor-at-large. He founded and is the author of RetailEmail.Blogspot, a blog dedicated to tracking the email marketing practices of the largest online retailers. Chad regularly writes major research reports on email marketing and is an Email Insider columnist for MediaPost. Read more.