Posted by Adam T. Sutton in Email Marketing Tips	August 2, 2007

5 Bad Email Marketing Tactics

A report shows 5 tactics are commonly executved and commonly fail

By Adam T. Sutton, Managing Editor, Mequoda Group, LLC

A mantra that remains true across email marketing and direct mail is "the money is in the list."

Email marketers are always trying to grow their list, but a recent study shows that many of them are planning to use tactics that others in the industry say show little results.

Silverpop's "2006 Email List Growth Survey" asked 321 companies what methods they planned to use to grow their list and which were most successful.

The most common tactics that email marketers were planning to implement that few others said showed good results were:

• Viral marketing (24 percent planned; 10 percent deemed successful)
  
• Cross-promotions (18 percent planned; 10 percent deemed successful)
  
• Co-marketing (18 percent planned; 6 percent deemed successful)
  
• Co-registration (16 percent planned; 5 percent deemed successful)
  
• List appends (15 percent planned; 4 percent deemed successful)

The strategy with the greatest difference between the percentage of businesses planning to implement it and the number of businesses reporting that it worked is viral marketing.

The report, which you can download for free, notes that executing a good viral marketing campaign is not always easy.

"It takes a great deal of effort that includes the absolutely right products offered to an audience targeted with laser-like accuracy," according to the report.

Mequoda Managing Director Don Nicholas notes that not every marketing strategy can work for everyone.

List appends, for example, will usually work if the email list is generated from a very passionate and committed buyer file, like gardeners or pharmaceutical executives, Nicholas said.

If the list append is based on a buyer file for a product that has a less targeted or dispassionate audience, it is not likely to be successful, Nicholas said.

What was the tactic reported best to build an email marketing file? Over half of the respondents (53 percent) said that online marketing and search showed positive results.

Here the report touches on a few Mequoda values, saying the best online marketing and search programs to grow list feature websites "infused with opt-in requests."

"Search engines drop users off in various locations throughout the company's website. So the ability to leverage paid search to drive visitors to email registration forms depends on the easy accessibility and visibility of an opt-in request," according to the report.

That means put opt-in request boxes in easily identifiable places on any page a user could land on your website (which is almost anywhere).

In fact, the companies that claim the largest lists have opt-in requests on every page, according to the report.

The report is loaded with great information for email marketers and you should really check it out. You have to give up some information (address and email address) to receive it, but the amount of valuable content is fantastic.