E mail marketing B to C

[Mad Dog]

We are a small firm of mortgage and life assurance advisors based in the South East. Currently considering email marketing nationwide to generate leads. Can anyone recommend a good company we can start talks with to see if this is suitable for us?

 

[bluesandsltd]

We are a small firm of mortgage and life assurance advisors based in the South East. Currently considering email marketing nationwide to generate leads. Can anyone recommend a good company we can start talks with to see if this is suitable for us?

Mad Dog

Hope this message finds you well.

Firstly, I will attach my apology for only being able to recommend our own company!

Moving on from that, we have extensive experience of working within the Financial Services / Insurance fields and have helped some of the biggest names as well as some of the best start-ups to gain new business...

If you'd like to learn more please let me know via PM and I'll be happy to contact you direct

Kind regards

Francis - Blue Sands Ltd

 

[BusinessIdeas]

You need to be very careful not to contravene the advertising regs on this one I would have thought, advertising financial services is a minefield!

 

[bluesandsltd]

You need to be very careful not to contravene the advertising regs on this one I would have thought, advertising financial services is a minefield!

Good call crewgirl25a

Allow me to delve a little further, I or We are not advertising financial services or anything of the sort, merely that we have operated as the marketing arm within such an arena. We are not regulated nor authorised by the FSA however the companies that we have helped with regards to marketing are.

I hope this clears up any misconception that we may be promoting or selling such services; we do not. We fit in on the marketing front, enabling those that are authorised, to sell such services.

Kind regards

Francis - Blue Sands Ltd

 

[JElder]

Also also be aware of the current rules on emailing to consumers!

You must only email to consumers that have either:

a) Opted in to receive information from your company
OR
b) Opted in to receive information specifically on mortgages and life assurance

 

[Target]

Not strictly true, Jelder. Under the terms of the EU Privacy & Electronic Communications Directive, it is also perfectly legal to send unsolicited marketing emails to a customer provided you have acquired their email address as a result of a sale or negotiations for a sale. This is a crucial consideration when planning to embark on email marketing, and can make a huge difference to the potential size of your marketing database.

Now, whether or not you'd WANT to send such unsolicited emails to customers is a different matter altogether, and will depend on the nature of your relationship with customers, the type of service or product or service, the content of the email etc. We always advise our clients to consider this option very carefully when we're preparing email campaigns on their behalf.

George

 

[Target]

Mad Dog, I'd also like to add that I don't consider email marketing a particularly good option for lead generation. Because of its intrusive nature, many people object strongly to receiving uninvited emails, even if they are perfectly legal as explained in my post above. In fact, you might find in some cases that people will point blank refuse to have anything further to do with your business simply because they didn't opt in to receiving your emails.

So, you might find your email has a negative impact on the reputation of your business.

Also, if the email addresses you send to are not from your own opted-in database, they could only otherwise be bought-in emails from a data supplier. This is fraught with its own problems, not least of which you can expect the response rate to be tiny.

As a possible alternative, do you have links with any other businesses who have a similar customer profile to your own? If so, I'd suggest you set up a joint venture where your products are featured in their email marketing, and vice-versa.

George

 

[JElder]

@ Target

That's interesting - what would be commonly defined as "sale or negotations"?

From the looks of the original poster they were looking to buy an email list - individuals they had not been in any contact with before.

 

[Target]

I must admit Jelder I find the 'negotiations' aspect a grey area and am not qualified to advise. I therefore tell our clients to play safe and consider using only those customers who have definitely made a purchase. This has the additional advantage of ensuring that email campaigns are sent only to people with whom the business has a properly established relationship, which in turn makes the email feel less uninvited and helps improve response rates.

 

[horseclick]

email marketing sucks

their emails keep coming back and coming back

it drives me crazy