Emails can generate great sales results when used correctly and well planned. However, what many do not know is that for these to work, it is necessary to have a good business strategy and a good database for email marketing..
Therefore, in this post I am going to show you everything you need to know to create an efficient and transparent email marketing database that, in fact, will help you to be successful in promoting your products or services.
However, watch out!: I already told you that your contact list is not going to fall from the sky, ok? You will have to really work to get a good base, but I assure you that if you do everything right, your effort will be very worthwhile.
We will see everything in detail so that there is no doubt at the end of this post. Keep reading!
What is email marketing?
Before starting with our advice, it is very important to make it clear what the .
Email marketing is a strategy of direct marketing which is based on sending emails to clients or potential clients, with the aim of promoting your brand, products or services and maintaining an active and close relationship with your target audience.
Surely you have already received, today, many emails of this type in your inbox. I invite you to do a super practical exercise that will help you better understand what I am talking about:
Enter your personal email, look at the messages you have received in recent days and try to identify which are marketing emails (that is, which content was sent by companies, brands or people with a commercial purpose, even if they are not directly related to the sale of a product or service).
Take a look at those emails, see what kind of title they put in the message, what language they use, what the layout of the email is like, what kind of images they use, what their objective is, what caught your attention in each one, etc.
This will help you better understand how this type of strategy works and what techniques you can use when you are the sender and not the recipient.
Going back a bit to the definition that I proposed to you, have you noticed that I mentioned “direct marketing”? If you don’t know what that is, don’t worry! I’ll explain:
How is email marketing related to direct marketing?
Direct marketing is a type of marketing that has 3 fundamental characteristics:
- It is addressed to a specific recipient.
- It presents segmented and targeted content.
- Its results can be measured.
Shall we go with an example? Imagine that you are a and you sell English courses online. You have 3 different types of course: one for beginners, one for intermediate level students and one for advanced level students.
Now imagine that one of the people in your database is Cristina, a university student who has advanced English and wants to improve her knowledge to participate in a student exchange program.
If Cristina receives an email from you, she will be receiving a contact straight, sent to your inbox. That is, the content will be addressed directly to it and not conveyed in a “generic” communication medium (such as television, a newspaper or an advertising poster).
In the case of these traditional media, there is no specific person to whom the message is sent: anyone who turns on their television at the moment the propaganda is aired.
Anyone who opens the newspaper to the page of the advertisement or anyone who passes by a street where there is an advertising billboard will read the message, even if it has nothing to do with their profile or their interests. Notice the difference?
VIDEO | Capture the email of your customers? + Payment processes at | Q&A#56
Well… In addition to the fact that the message will be sent directly to Cristina, its content will be segmented and addressed specifically to her. In other words, if you have the information that Cristina already has advanced English, obviously you will not send her a message talking about your English course for beginners, right?
The fact that you can send your content directly to a person allows you to personalize what you are going to say, and that means that you can have a much greater success compared to a written text or a video recorded for a generic or too heterogeneous audience.
Now I am going to open a small parenthesis before continuing. It may be that you are wondering: “But how do I know that Cristina has an advanced level of English?” It is possible to do it and soon I will tell you how. I know you’re curious, but don’t worry about it for now.
The last point related to direct marketing is the ability to measure results. If you put an ad in a magazine, for example, how will you know how many people read your message?
It is totally impossible to have that information, because even if you know how many people bought the magazine (something that is already quite complicated), you will never know who opened the page where your content is. The same goes for a billboard: you can never know how many people walked past your ad.
However, direct marketing is totally different: when you send an email using a good email delivery system, you know exactly who opened your message and when.
In addition, you can know if the person clicked on any links that you have included in your message. All this allows you to measure your results and develop strategies according to the actions of your recipients.
What is a database for email marketing?
Now that you know what email marketing is, it’s also good to clarify what a database is. Imagine that you own a supermarket and you have a warehouse where you store the food you sell.
In order for you to find the products when they are placed on the shelves, they must be very well organized according to their characteristics (sweet cookies, crackers, pasta, sauces, fruits, meats, cheeses, desserts, etc.).
However, if those goods are disorganized (each one in one place, all mixed up and without any kind of classification), it is very likely that you will go crazy every time you need to look for a product in your warehouse.
The database (also known as BBDD) is like a repository, and the information of your clients or potential clients is like food, which must always be very well stored and organized so that, when you find it, you can do it easily.
1. Basic information to build a database
The information you store in your database depends on your market niche and your business. For example, if you have online English courses for different levels, knowing the level of knowledge of each contact in your base is important, so that you can offer them content according to their profile.
In that case of the English course, knowing the gender of it is not something very important. But if you offer a fitness program of food and physical exercises.
For example, this information will be very strategic, because the content can be very different for men and women, who have different types of metabolisms.
The only one mandatory information What you must have to create your database for email marketing is the email address of your lead. But, of course: the more information you have, the better content you can send, because it will be much more personalized (and more likely to be successful!).
Name, age, gender, profession, nationality and telephone number are some of the information that may be of interest to your business. In addition, other more specific data (as in the case of the level of English) can be very useful according to each market niche.
Of course: be careful not to post excess information, which is more difficult to obtain and, also, to control. Generally, 3 or 4 pieces of information are enough to send segmented emails to your leads.
Below I am going to show you some ideas to obtain this data, but I will tell you in advance that, to do so, you must create forms and include the information that is most strategic for your business. That form can have only one space to fill in or several.
VIDEO | Create an unbeatable lead magnet with these 5 recommendations!
2. Storage in email marketing databases
The information of your leads should be stored somewhere where they are safe and very well organized. For starters, you can put the data in a Google Sheets, for example.
However, the ideal is that you store the information directly in the email sending tool you use; the main ones on the market have a specific space for you to enter your data and create your list of contacts.
Having the database integrated into the tool can greatly facilitate your work when sending marketing emails.
Can you buy a database for email marketing list?
If you type in Google “buy email database” you will see that many options will appear.
At first, it may seem like a very good idea to buy a list of those that are already created, right? But do not be fooled! There are many (many) reasons why YOU SHOULD NOT BUY A DATABASE FOR EMAIL MARKETING (in bold and capital letters). Now I’ll explain why.
1. Because it affects your reputation
Imagine that you receive an email from a brand or company that you do not know in your inbox. You’ve never seen his page, you don’t know what it’s about, you don’t know if he’s trustworthy… and worst of all: you’ve never authorized him to send you a message.
Would you open the email? Probably not, right? Much less if you do not need the product or service you are offering.
Every time you receive a message from that brand, especially if it happens frequently, you will put it in your trash tray (the famous “trash”). And, after a while, you’ll probably be very angry with the amount of unwanted content you receive from that company.
You might even report them as spam. In short: the reputation of the sender will be completely affected and it will be very difficult for you to buy anything from him.
Now imagine that you are interested in gluten-free gastronomy and you have found a blog that talks about this topic. You read some materials, watch some videos, and then sign up for a free Christmas recipe ebook.
When downloading, you receive an authorization request to enter the blog’s mailing list and receive news and updates. As it is something that interests you, you accept.
If you later receive an email from that blog telling you that they have published a video with 10 gluten-free recipes for Easter, it is very likely that you will open the message and access the content, right? First because the subject interests you, second because you already know the blog, and third because you have authorized this message to be sent to you.
In the first example, the brand bought a database, which generates a marketing…
Facebook Comments
Disqus