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    How to collect email addresses

Adriana Galgano is an Ottantaventi senior partner, instructor in Italy and abroad for companies of National and International importance. 

Eugenio La Mesa is Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of SALESWARE - email marketing software, and Chief Technology Officer of PUBLISOFT, the company that won the Microsoft Italy prize in 1997 for the most strategic Internet solution. 

They are co-authors of the book "Selling and buying on the Internet" published by Sperling &  Kupfer and of the Email Marketing column on the Microsoft website and on the marketing magazine MKT7.

An important component of a successful email marketing campaign is the list of email addresses used. It is possible to design an exceptional campaign, but if the list that we intend to use does not contain addresses that relate to our target, the results will be modest.

Thus it is not the number of addresses that makes the difference, but their quality. Small, very targeted lists are able to produce very high response rates.

Email addresses for email marketing campaigns may be: 
a. rented or purchased from specialized firms, which assemble them in a transparent and legal manner, or from brokers, whose business is to match list holders with potential buyers. These firms are present mainly in the United States. In some cases, the American firms also supply email addresses of European and Italian internet users. 
b. collected directly by the firm, which asks for them from current customers and prospects.

The decision to buy or rent a list depends on the resources available to keep it up to date. The subscribers on a list can change their preferences or decide to unsubscribe. Managing profile changes and unsubscriptions is indispensable for a list to continue producing results. However, it is expensive. If you believe that you can manage it, purchasing a list can be a good investment. Otherwise, it is better to rent it.

In choosing a list, it is a good idea to verify:

• the procedures for collecting addresses. The value of a list can vary greatly depending on whether the addresses were collected so that their use was transparent, asking for permission from the address holder, or whether they were obtained by offering the possibility of winning a cruise or even a free computer.
  
• the collection dates of the addresses on the list. All things being equal, lists with more recent addresses yield better results.

A firm can collect addresses directly:

• through its web site, offering a subscription to a company newsletter or by means of an information form that contains an option to authorize the firm to make successive contact.
  
• through specific campaigns: in the case of B to C companies, once the target is identified, we could launch a telemarketing campaign to collect email addresses and the permission to use them. In the case of private individuals, we are only limited by our imagination. For example, Barnes and Noble, one of the biggest bookstores in the world, offered a discount of 5% on books just purchased, and valid for the next purchase, to customers who provided their email addresses. A chain of concessionaires put up an automobile as a prize among all those who visited a dealership and left their own data, their email addresses and a report of their purchasing habits and intentions.

So is it better to purchase outside lists or build them internally? Research by Forrester Research last year in the United States showed that when using internally collected email addresses of customers and prospects, the average cost of each sale developed from an email marketing action was 100 times less than when using lists purchased from outside.

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