Dun & Bradstreet

Take a moment and step with me through the looking glass, where up is down, left is right, and pastrami is . . . um . . . something else. Now, in this world, marketing is not about doing your best to efficiently and cost-effectively spread the word about your products or services, but annoying people and wasting a lot of time and money doing so.

Let's say this mirror-mirror marketing director decides to go with email prospecting. No one in this world understands the choice at first. Opt in e mail marketing is effective at reaching large numbers of people quickly and if it's done well it can have a great ROI.

But don't worry, this email director doesn't know what he's doing. Rather than choosing a product that can reach the target audience, he goes for one that has a failure rate of about 40%. Only six out of ten emails will actually reach the people on the list. It's a good start in his mind.

Add to that a list that wasn't custom built for them and the fact they buy email addresses for one mailing at a time, and you've got a winner! At least in the Topsy-turvy world. In the real world, all they've done is crippled their bulk e mail marketing efforts. Sadly, a lot of people are still following these questionable practices.

Why? Because they don't know that there is a better option in D&B Professional Contacts. With the fact that it's two to three times more accurate than most available email lists, it's customized for your particular audience, and you get to use it for an entire year and as many mailings as you like, it's a pretty solid choice.

If you'd like to know about D&B Professional Contacts and how it can help you run a success email marketing campaign, you can download our whitepaper or get a free quote!

We all know that this is true. Life is full of small annoyances, failures, and disappointments that get under your skin and sit there. Most of the time we're all mature enough to sigh and move on.

But sometimes we're just in a foul mood so we loose our temper, and by goodness, we're going to tell that traffic light what we think about it. Of course, if we know that there's nothing we can do about a problem, we usually leave our response at that. If we think we can remove that source of annoyance, however, we'll leap at it. It's why we madly chase after that last fly or mosquito and why people opt out of opt in e mail marketing.

And that means as you use your email address directory, you have to recognize that it's the little things that annoy readers. Consequently, you have weed those irritants out from any marketing effort or you'll lose members of your list. So let's identify three major "mosquitoes" readers deal with and how you can avoid being swatted.

1. Too Many Messages:
I don't need to focus on this one too much. Sending off lots of messages is a good thing. Sending off lots of messages one after the other without a break isn't. Unfortunately there is no hard and fast rule for what the ideal number of messages.

Some audiences or products will only require sporadic messages while others will need more regular exposure before they'll become a customer. Experiment with pacing via test campaigns to see what email rate is most successful for your product. Also, just consider how many messages you could take before you start deleting them, and you can get a rough estimate for your campaign.

2. Irrelevant Advertising
A great way to bother someone is to send them ads for something they have no use for, a lesson online ads seem to embracing. Why does watching a video with tips for a game spawn "interactive videos" of "astonishing" cleaning results?

That means you'll need a company email directory designed to best reach your target audience. Thankfully, D&B Professional Contacts will help with this problem. Rather than giving you a list and hoping for the best, we custom build one for you, allowing you to reach the people who need your products.

3. Deception
Deception is another little annoyance in small business email marketing. I call it little because, like the others, it's easily dealt with by opting-out. But the consequence of deceptive subject lines or messages are massive and can land you incredible fines.

But on a smaller scale, trickery leaves a bad taste in reader's mouth. Yes, the reader opened a message, but now they associate that company with "liar." The same is true of online ads disguised as video options, alert boxes, or surveys. If you get suckered in, chances you aren't going to be eager to buy the product.

Those are three chief annoyances readers have with bulk e mail marketing and it's up to you to help them retain their sanity. That way they'll be happy to buy the products they genuinely find useful - your products. Good luck!

If you'd like to know about D&B Professional Contacts, you can download our whitepaper or even get a free quote!

When planning a party for the upcoming Superbowl, you've got to make sure you have all the basics - good food, good seating, good drinks, and a good television. Those are the necessities of any good football party. What doesn't work, though, is trying to tack on "additional" items right before the game.

A poorly thought out half-time game, some costume rule, or any number of "activities," these additions aren't usually fun and don't last for more than five minutes (unless the host is very insistent.) The problem, though, isn't that the host is trying to make his or her party stand out. The problem is that they didn't really work at it. They just added something to the end and hoped for the best.

Unfortunately, many people treat bulk email advertising the same way. It's an afterthought to the overall marketing effort. They purchase an email business directory, but rather than effectively capitalizing on its enormous potential, they send out sporadic messages and wonder why they never see a good return.

Email needs to be fully integrated into a company's overall marketing plans as soon as you buy email leads. Announcing a new product? Don't leave out email. Have a new website? Break the ice via bulk e mail marketing. Of course, you can also use the messages to create leads and new customers, but don't limit yourself to that. It's a great way to bring attention to your social media efforts, for example.

But make sure that the other parts of your marketing efforts work to enhance your messages. Website content should be adapted so it can provide the information promised in emails, for example, because that will greatly increase the chance of maintaining a reader's interest. Like all collaborative efforts, it's a give and take.

If you'd like to know about D&B Professional Contacts, our company email directory, you can download our whitepaper or even get a free quote! Thanks to Mr. Jenkins for the inspiration, and for more tips, click here.

Yep, it's definitely too long. If it wasn't for the fact that the title itself drew attention to it's length, many people wouldn't have bothered to read it. People, as readers, are surprisingly disinterested in the actual words on the screen, paper, or sign. Rather than read  a couple of dozen words, we'll often skim even short documents.

And for those of us in opt in e mail marketing, that leaves us with two options:
1.) Create content that is so astonishing that people have to read it.
2.) Take advantage of the human tendency to skim.
Now, ideally great copy would be enough, but developing headlines and paragraphs of that high of a quality is rare. Instead, you need to take into account and capitalize on skimming.

Most people will only read headlines and the first few sentences of newsletters, generally focusing on pictures rather than any actual words.  Now, if you're using the soft-sell, newsletter approach that means your headlines need to written to grab attention fast - don't assume people will read past the first three words unless it's clear there's something of value.

If you're going for a hard sell with bulk e mail marketing, that means you're going to have to break up your message with various "Headlines." More accurately, you'll need to include lines that physically stand out from the others via font size or some sort of text effect (bold/italics/underline.) Doing this will draw reader's eyes and hopefully their attention, but a word of caution: avoid CAPS Lock and exclamation points, as those set off people's internal SPAM filters.

For more tips on how to capitalize on human reading tendencies, click here. If you'd like to know about D&B Professional Contacts, our company email directory, you can download our whitepaper or even get a free quote!

America and England have always had an interesting relationship with one another, especially when it comes to language. Yes, we "share" a language, but in the same way a child shares a toy - with a lot of reservation, frustration, and confusion. For example, our phrase "falling head over heels" means to fall madly in love. In England, it means to be "really drunk."

You see, to the British the phrase is a description of an unbalanced drunk, falling "head over heels" after a night out. Quite a difference between falling in love and falling over from alcohol, isn't there? Clearly, language is tricky and you must take that into account when writing permission e mail marketing. 

After all, a term or phrase you like to use may be just that, something you use and few others do. For example, I love using old terms in my own writing, but for theses posts I generally try to avoid them. Why? Well, I assume because not everyone is familiar with them. By avoiding needlessly difficult vocabulary, more people can enjoy this blog.

You need to think of your copy in a similar way. Your vocabulary can't be needlessly complex and you can't use obscure phrases, references, or quotes. If you do, you can end up alienating the people you're trying to reach with your bulk e mail marketing. And while you may not face the same misunderstandings that can occur between British English and American English, being preemptively careful with your messages will insure that readers understand your offers and, hopefully, start buying your products.

But it's always hard to judge if the copy for your small business email marketing is understandable to others because if you wrote it, you understand it. So be sure to have multiple memebers of your staff check out anything that's written to make sure eveyone gets it. Good luck!

If you'd like to know about D&B Professional Contacts, our company email directory, you can download our whitepaper or even get a free quote!

So everyone is gathered around the Christmas Tree/Birthday-Boy/Bride-to-Be, watching the special person open up his/her presents. They smile when he/she gushes when they get the new toy/gizmo/generic item. Someone takes credit for giving the gift and gets the expected Thank You. A very normal situation.

But what if you inserted another gift in there? One that in the "From" line on the tag or card had a strange name no one had heard of before? Maybe "Guntar" or "Stanrick." For some people, they'd become a little hesitant about opening the gift. Sure, they would open it eventually but not before a pause.

Now remove the incentive that the gift is and make it just a random package. Even more hesitation. Remove the package and make it an email from a total stranger. The hesitation has now grown into a refusal to open up the message. People don't like email from total strangers, after all.

That's one of the challenges you'll have to overcome in opt in e mail marketing. People are naturally wary about messages from people they don't know. But if you make them believe there is something of value inside, their hesitation fades. That leaves you with two great ways to increase open rates:

1.) Let Them Know Who You Are: The "From" line is an important part of permission based email marketing. It, along with the subject line, are what people will look at when deciding whether or not to open a message.  That means you need to choose your email address and it's associated name well. A company name can work, but you may want to be more specific than that. For example, if you're sending out a newsletter, have it sent from an address that uses the newsletters name.

2.) Make It Worth Their While: This one is more obvious, but still vital. Your subject line needs to be attractive to the people in your email address directory. You want readers to know that, by opening the message, they'll be benefiting. Don't have a dull subject line like "Acme Co. Newsletter" - it promises nothing of value. Try "Storage Advice from Chief Engineer Johnson." If you were in charge of warehouse management, you're more likely to open the last message because it promises something useful.

Keep those tips in mind when you're crafting your email marketing and you'll notice a definite benefit. After all, the promise of a good enough gift will override most any reservation.

If you'd like to learn about D&B Professional Contacts, you can download our whitepaper or even get a free quote!

A current trend in video games today is user generated content. Rather than just selling a single-player game or an online multiplayer option (which is almost a prerequisite for games today), developers are giving players the tools to build their own levels. A leader in this field is Little Big Planet series. Over a million levels were created for the first game and with a sequel just released, it looks like content will keep coming.

But a lot of those levels are trash. They're just not that good and part of the reason is inconsistent design. They'll throw together various colors, shapes, and textures that don't work together or they'll smash together multiple ideas and gimmicks that, by themselves, may have worked. Grouped together, it makes a mess. The level subsequently flops.

Bulk email marketing can fall into the same trap. With D&B Professional Contacts, you can make and send off as many messages as you like to your email address directory.  You probably won't send off a million emails, but you'll put a lot of time into writing copy and sending it off - and it'll all be for naught if you lack consistency in your design.

You need to make sure your permission based email marketing has a tone that is internally consistent (between messages) and externally consistent (with the website). If your copy bounces all over when it comes to tone, word choice, level of technical terms, and so on, readers won't be able or be interested in following along. Bubbly emails don't work well with serious, straightforward webpages

Getting this consistency isn't easy, because you have to choose the tone. To do this you'll need to find one that works well, one that can get those in your email address directory to respond. Test messages will help with that challenge. But then your team has to adopt that tone for any future copy they will write. This will take practice, as writers have their own personal styles that are hard to shake.

With some effort, though, you will find even a large team can follow an overarching theme for all the copy they write - giving you the consistent design that helps bring about success. If you'd like to know about D&B's company email directory, you can download our whitepaper or even get a free quote!

Expert bowlers rely on it to succeed. Quarterbacks who can't do it to a ball fail. It's a prerequisite of frisbees. Wheels can't stop doing it. Without it, airplanes would never have existed. I am, of course, referring to spin. No spin means no propeller which means no flight at Kitty-Hawk. No spin on a football makes for lousy throws, and so on and so forth.

And, without spin, it's easy to run out of ideas for opt in e mail marketing. Well, it's easy to run out of ideas if you manage campaigns that run for a long time. And since D&B gives you a full year of emails to a custom built email address directory, that means you will end up struggling for ideas for your copy.

Don't worry, it happens to everyone. So what you have to learn to do is spin. After all, there are a limited number of topics that:
Thankfully, most facts can already be portrayed in two lights - positively and negatively.These share the same idea, but wording them in this matter has already doubled your usable content for your small business email marketing.

Another factor that will affect how often you can reuse a topic is whether you use a hard or soft sell approach with it.  You can always encourage readers to act right away on valuable information you passed on to them. Likewise, you can use that same information in a soft sell message that doesn't demand immediate action, but instead encourages them to think about the product.

Hopefully these tips will help you out - and if you use them, you've already quadrupled how many times you can use the same selling point. Good luck!

If you'd like to know about D&B Professional Contacts, you can download our whitepaper or even get a free quote!

"You have been weighed, you have been measured, and you have been found wanting." This line from A Knight's Tale was actually based on quote from the Biblical book of Daniel. This quote is extremely condemning. It basically says that the character, to their very essence, is not enough. They have failed to fulfill their duty or, perhaps worse, they were never capable of doing so.

Why this cheery focus on such a depressing statement? Because your bulk e mail marketing should be found wanting as well. It should be measured and weighed and it should be lacking. There, now don't you feel better? No? Well, you should. Opt in e mail marketing isn't, after all, supposed to be self-contained.

The purpose of this marketing style is to, first off, get readers to open the message. Then, through short and compelling copy, drive them onto your website. Touch on a few facts, maybe a statistic, the tease of a special offer, and then BAM! Link to your website, which will have all the detailed information - tables, videos, price quotes, etc.

It's the meat of your sales pitch. The optin email marketing, though, needs to be intentionally left lacking. If you try to put too much information into it, readers will go into overload and delete the message. But if the email contains the tantalizing spice of a compelling facts, the readers will follow the scent to the feast of information elsewhere.

This is a rare case of being found wanting is good, because it should leave your readers wanting more. If you'd like to know about D&B's company email directory, you can download our whitepaper or even get a free quote!

Earlier today, a friend of mine did his best to help me with a mechanical/electronic problem - a controller has gotten a case of sticky buttons. This wouldn't be much of a problem if you could easily open it and clean the inside, like you can do with many keyboards. But rather than using a Phillips or a flat-head screw, the controller is held together by seven, six-sided, star-shaped screws with spokes in the middle.

Needless to say, I was less than impressed. I was frustrated, angry, and, even though I knew their product was pretty good overall, at the time I couldn't stand the thought of that company. And if you do the same thing with your permission based email marketing, don't expect happy readers.

How could you even do that, though, since readers are just dealing with text? It's not like you can have text that doesn't work. But it's not as much the bulk e mail marketing's message that causes the problem, but links. If you have links that don't actually connect or connect to the right pages, you can rest assured that readers will quickly loose interest. Most people don't like to play "Find the Right Page in the Website."

But most links will work just fine. The problem then comes down to the copy and media on your website. Well developed messages don't stop, after all, with permission e mail marketing. Your website needs to have compelling, informative copy that relates directly to the emails you send out. A great message linking to an unrelated page is no where near effective as an email whose message begins in a reader's inbox and flows seamlessly into your website.

This means you'll have to coordinate your messages to your website copy and vice-a-versa, but your efforts ensure readers can easily follow the ideas that interest them and don't get frustrated with convulated copy and malfunctioning links.

If you'd like to know about D&B's company email directory, you can download our whitepaper or even get a free quote!

Ah, Star Trek. You've helped create an entire generation of devotees, fanboys, and some pretty corny alien races. As easy it is to tease Trek fans, there's no denying that it has inspired many people to pursue science as a career and has actually led to some worthwhile innovation. The phrase, "To seek out new life," is a noble aspiration after all.

What's more important, though, is applying that call to action to your business. Having a strong customer based that you rely on is normal for a company, but loosing customers over time is almost inevitable. So unless you're constantly trying to add new life to that base, you'll slowly weaken as a business.

Seeking out that new life has always been the job of marketers and for decades they've been using television, print ads, mailings, calls, meetings, and give aways. With the advent of the internet, though, bulk e mail marketing has leaped onto the scene as a new and very useful advertising tool.

It allows you to reach a lot of people quickly and for a relatively low cost. And, even though many people end up not opening up the message, since you send out thousands of emails, it balances out. It's an inexpensive and efficient way to get new people interested in your products.

And if you purchase email addresses via D&B Professional Contacts, you'll have a distinct advantage over companies using other providers. Why? Well, there are several reasons. The first is that we use key attributes of your audience (that you help us identify) to build you a custom list. That means the messages you send off are going to the right sort of people.

Next, we give you that list for an entire year and as many optin email marketing campaigns as you like. Rather than renting it from us one mailing at a time (which can get quite expensive after multiple uses) you can send off as many mailings as you see fit.

And, finally, the best part of our list is that it's two to three times more accurate than what other providers offer. So when you go out to seek new customers for your company, to boldly grow like no company has before, you won't be held back by inferior tools. Good luck!

If you'd like to know about D&B's company email directory, you can download our whitepaper or even get a free quote!

I don't like the idea of jumping another person's car. No, I'm not against helping people who are in a jam. What I don't like is that I don't know what I'm doing. I barely understand cars and if I end up connecting the power-cord incorrectly, I could potentially ruin their battery.

Being able to give other people a jump is a great feature of cars, though, just one I'm not very good at. D&B Professional Contacts on the other hand, is a great way to jump-start interest in your companies products. By using our company email directory, you can turn little know products or services into real winners.

How can D&B help you do that? Well, our program allows you to send out marketing emails to thousands of readers at a very low cost, leading to a great ROI. By sending out carefully constructed messages along with special offers, you can reach an audience who may have otherwise never heard of your products!

But why use our email list over other providers? Well, because many providers rent email lists from one use only. They allow you to run one mailing and then you're done. Each and every time you send out a message you have to pull out your wallet. It gets old fast.

With D&B, though, you pay once and get a customer built email address directory for an entire year and as many mailings as you like. That means you can design entire campaigns for multiple products without having to worry about the cost of all the messages. Another benefit that we can't ignore, though, is that our messages actually get to where they're going.

You see, many providers don't regularly update their lists, leaving rather significant errors. But since our lists are updated regularly by a live community, we're actually two to three times more accurate than most lists available. That means your expertly developed messages reach the right people, at the right time, and as often as you like! It can turn a poorly performing product into a real money maker.

If you'd like to know about D&B's company email directory, you can download our whitepaper or even get a free quote!

Whether you're making a cake or a drink, your success depends largely on mixing the proper ingredients in the proper proportions. If you're trying to make a cake, but you swap the 3 cups of flour for 3 cups of eggs you'll end up with a very . . . interesting cake or perhaps very bad scrambled eggs.

Having the right ingredients in the right amount is necessary to anything you cook. Likewise, having the right sort of copy in the right amounts is absolutely vital to profitable opt in e mail marketing. Since you can send out as many messages as you like over the course of year with D&B Professional Contacts, you'll have a chance to run some pretty long campaigns.

And within these campaigns, you'll need to have variety in your copy. But of what kinds and how often should you use them? Well, there are four general kinds of copy you'll use

1. Welcome to the Product

Coupons - love them or hate them, they're part of modern society. They comprise over half our Sunday newspapers, keep falling out of our magazines, and cleverly disguise themselves as letters. Thankfully, they can give us good deals, which allows them to leave the realm of irritation into the realms of usefulness.

But can you imagine if you received the same amount of "coupons" but they didn't offer anything? If they were just sales pitch after sales pitch? Very few people would even bother to read them. Most would transfer them straight from newspaper to garbage can without a second glance.

Unfortunately, that's what a lot of people see bulk e mail marketing as - coupons sans any discounts or value. Just a person making claims and demanding money. Thankfully, business to business permission e mail marketing doesn't have quite the same stigma as direct to consumer emails, but you still have to be careful.

When you send out multiple messages to readers over an extended period of time, as you can do with D&B Professional Contacts, you eventually have to start offering more than words. Yes, well constructed copy is a powerful sales ally and offering advice and business tips via newsletters is helpful. But never forget you're dealing with people - and people love money.

Specifically, getting it. But if they have to spend it, they love saving as much as possible. Consequently, your permission based email marketing needs to make readers feel as if they're saving money. The easiest way to do this is to literally do that. Include special offers or discounts if they respond to your email.

And even if you aren't offering a discount, your copy should make it clear to readers that they will save money by using your product. Explain how what you're offering saves time, space or effort and how that in turn saves the customer from wasting their money.  Remember, money talks - sometimes more clearly than brilliant copy.

If you'd like to know about D&B's company email directory, you can download our whitepaper or even get a free quote!

It's surprising how much of our world is flat. But isn't our world in three dimensions? Well, yeah, of course. I'm not about to say that everything we do is 2-D, just that since the advent of computers, we spend a lot of times staring a flat images. Yes, that picture may have a lot of contrast and good lighting, but it's still flat.

But that seems like it's going to change in the next few years. 3-D televisions are becoming popular and Nintendo's 3-DS (a handheld gaming system with glass-free 3-D) is about to explode onto the market. And as our screen's stop appearing to be flat, so should your products.

And, before you ask, I'm not talking about bulk e mail marketing with 3-D effects. It's the copy in your permission e mail marketing that needs to pop out. What you send to readers can't be a simple description. A list of specifications or technical details a compelling message does not make and it certainly won't turn most readers into customers.

So how do you write copy that "pops out?" Well, the first thing you need to do is identify what about your product most interest your subject. Let's say your trying to sell a certain type of calculator. Now, those aren't inherently exciting - but the time and effort they can save employees are exciting.

So you focus on that, creating copy that shows just how much money and time is saved by your new, efficient calculators. In the copy, you will mention some specific details of the product as well, fleshing out the product in the reader's mind. Then, at the end of your bulk e mail marketing message, you'll encourage them to find out more by visiting your website.

You see, the compelling details interspersed with hard facts will create a fuller, more three dimensional image of your product than just one or other. Nothing but fun facts and details would seem like an empty sales pitch but to much detail would put readers to sleep. Balance the two and your copy will pop out and really grab your readers' attention.

If you'd like to know about D&B's company email directory, you can download our whitepaper or even get a free quote!

A staple of 50's science fiction and parodies alike, the spinning newspaper with the "startling" headline is firmly ingrained in most people's psyches. The viewer can be informed that "Giant Crickets Destroy City" or that "Mad Scientists Form Union;" whatever the information, the director makes it very clear by literally throwing the information at the screen.

You can't do quite the same thing with your permission e mail marketing, but only because you can't get the emails to have that nice spin. All joking aside, your email address directory is a fantastic way to alter your readers about important events, sales, and news which might affect them and their business.

Now, you may agree that altering potential customers to sales and discounts is great, but why bother sharing other types of news with them. After all, you got D&B Professional Contacts to increase your sales - to help with your overall marketing strategy. Why waste time with other things? 

Because it's not a waste. Information is valuable - tips on labor saving methods, effective ways to save time and money, legal changes in the industry, or any number of other bits of data can be immensely useful to readers. Sharing this with readers can help them and their business. That may sound like a waste of valuable emails, but never underestimate the gratitude of readers.

For example, imagine you have a reader who runs a warehouse that stores, let's say, computer parts. You come along and send an email with an article that explains new ways to cut down dramatically on storage space for certain kinds of computers. The reader is going to see this, apply the new method, and remember your company for the help it provided. So the next time they need to order a certain part, who do you think they're going to call?

Sharing information like this via bulk e mail marketing is a great way to build up your reputation among readers and, consequently, increase your customer database. So get out there and spread the news!

If you'd like to know about D&B's company email directory, you can download our whitepaper or even get a free quote!

Your product is now at the final stages of its life-cycle. It has passed from infancy to youth to middle age, and is "old." Now, that doesn't mean your product is suddenly worthless - old doesn't mean "your product has fallen over and died." A time can come when that happens, but the strategy we're about to discuss is for your product when it's still useful, just old.

Generally when a product has been in the market for a long time, regular marketing won't be enough to keep it fresh. Now, if you can get your product worked into your audience's consciousness like Coke or McDonald's have done - well done - then regular marketing will help keep it there. Achieving and maintaining that is extremely difficult to do, though, even with business opportunity email.

Therefore, at this stage in your product's life-cycle you have to go for "Revitalization." You want to get that last burst of profitability, so you're going to have to make your product feel "new" one last time. This is difficult to do and will require very strongly worded copy. This isn't the time for subtly or a slow build up of information through bulk e mail marketing.

Instead, you've got to go for a "showstopper." That means strongly worded copy, very good deals, discounts, etc.  You have to let readers know that this product's still got it and, if they act in time, they can get it too. Remember, though, that this the sort of thing you can only pull off once in a product's life-cycle.

The old adage is true: "the candle that burns brightest burns half as long." A strong push like this will probably get you a burst of customers, but after that it's likely to be exhausted. That may be intimidating, but consider that the product was going to peter out anyways. Best to make as much as you can via email prospecting when it's about to go rather than letting it slowly disappear.

Well, that covers some of the ways you can use D&B Professional Contacts to help your product thrive throughout it's life-cycle. For more information about D&B's company email directory, you can download our whitepaper or even get a free quote!

In the previous post we talked about a strategy to bring people's attention back to your product. Since it no longer was new, there was no urgency to capitalize on; since it's been out for a while, reminders wouldn't be effective. So how did you use emails to enhance this part of your product's life-cycle?

At that stage, you could keep your product healthy by interviewing satisfied customers and use that information to put together a newsletter. You could then use this information in your business opportunity email. The positive reviews would help sway over readers who have been holding off.

But now your product has been out for a good amount of time - long enough that it's been established in the market. It has a place among competitors and has a decent "following." At this stage, let's call in "Middle Age," it's very easy to let your product to become stagnate, and it is extremely dangerous to let it do so. If you stop pushing your product, it will slowly be forgotten.

So how do you prevent stagnation? Well, let's consider the fact that your product is one among many. If it was the only one avialable, it would be difficult for it to fall out of use, but there are plent available. So capitalize on that - develop copy that highlights your product's superitority compared to other businesses. This is the "Us Vs. Them" strategy for your permission e mail marketing.

The details of your message will vary greatly on the product. If you're selling a computer part, you'll want to focus on how much more efficient it is, if it cools down quickly, or so on. If you're selling a program, concentrate on how much time it saves. And so on and so forth. Whatever your product offers that is better than your competitors, that's what you focus on for this stage of your email prospecting.

This method is difficult - you can't be overly antagonistic or you'll turn readers off; but your claims can't be too mild or it won't interest anyone. Nonetheless, the "Us Vs. Them" method is  worth the effort. It's very effective way to grab a reader's attention, get them interested in your product again, and show why they should choose you over others.

If you'd like to know more about our D&B's company email directory, you can download our whitepaper or even get a free quote!

The "Reminder" stage of your product's life-cycle has come and gone. Your target audience has now heard about it several times and another straightforward reminder will serve little purpose. At this point, you've highlighted it's advantages to revive interest and, in the beginning, you fully capitalized on the sense of urgency business opportunity email has to offer you. So now what? What's the next stage?

Well, before we can identify the best way to use D&B Professional Contacts to your advantage, we need to understand what stage of its life-cycle your product is in. Well, it's not new and the novelty is gone. It's been available for a while and that means people are less likely to think about it, sort of like when a pet has just become part of a family - you stop thinking about it.

Now, here's how email prospecting can help you in this stage, through the "Share the Love" strategy. As we said before, your product is now known, but people in your email address directory aren't focused on that knowledge and direct reminders aren't going to do much. So you won't remind them - your customers will.

You need to start gathering customer testimonials, reviews, and conducting interviews with happy clients. You need to get their opinions on, ideas for, and stories about your product. Gathering this information can take some time, but it's absolutely worth it. Not only will this information be useful for your business opportunity email, but it can also be used in other marketing.

Once you have gathered that data, you need to develop a series of messages, perhaps in a newsletter format, that make it clear just how much customers like your product. Make sure to include any available statistics or figures (from the customers) about how much money or time your product has saved them. Feel free to have these messages be on the longer side and have links to full testimonials on your website.

After developing this copy and testing it with smaller mailings, send out the messages. Now you're using your customers to create more customers - the "People Like Me" method. This trick can help products break out of their mid-life rut.

If you'd like to know more about our D&B's company email directory, you can download our whitepaper or even get a free quote!

In the first of this series of posts, I spoke about how your could use bulk e mail marketing to help products through their life-cycle. The first of these stages in the life-cycle was the Announcement - using email marketing to spread the news about your product.

Since email has an inherent urgency to it due to it's speed and immediacy, this allows you to get the news out fast and create a drive for the readers to find out more. They'll want to be the first people to get a leg up by using your new product. The email is urgent in form and your copy can increase that exponentially - all to your advantage.

The second stage of your product's life-cycle is when the initial "thrill" has worn off. Your product isn't old yet, but it's certainly not new. You don't have the benefit of it being established nor the sense of novelty that you could use earlier in the first rounds of business opportunity email. This is when the Reminder Phase of your product needs to kick in.

This isn't just you re-announcing your product, though, because if a reader sees you talking about this product as if it just came out, they'll roll their eyes, be confused, or just ignore you. No, now is the time to highlight some of the benefits and savings of your new product. Use your email address directory to remind customers that the product is out there and waiting.

This, of course, doesn't have to be just one email. With D&B Professional Contacts you have a year of unlimited emails, so you can set up several reminder messages during this part of your products lifecycle - each highlighting a specific benefit of the product. Be sure to spread them out so you can break up any slow periods in the early stages of your products lifecycle.

Tomorrow I'll share more ways you can use emails to assist your products as they move through their lifespan. If you'd like to know more about our D&B's company email directory, you can download our whitepaper or even get a free quote!