Top 10 Email Appending Mistakes to Avoid

This article, Top 10 Email Appending Mistakes to Avoid, from ChiefMarketer.com not only tells you how to avoid email appending mistakes, but also gives helpful tips on what to look for in an Email Marketing Services Provider. 

Whether or not you choose ICS for your next email marketing project, I want to make sure that your investment and reputation are protected. 

So as you’re putting those finishing touches on your 2010 marketing plans, here are few critical points to consider when choosing an email marketing partner.  And while this article focuses on email lists, the same cautionary tips can apply to almost any direct marketing area.

Leveraging Legacy “In-Market Shopper” Data for Automotive

It has been an interesting Summer in the Automotive Marketing space.  Tough to be in Michigan and not be impacted by the challenges faced to jumpstart this business sector. 

The focus of today’s message is using Legacy In Market Shopper data in the Automotive Space.  Typically, Automobile Manufacturers use the freshest data coming from sources like CarsDirect and Autobytel when prospecting for automotive sales.  This makes sense, as they are likely to still be shopping for a vehicle … and influencing the prospect to consider your brand is a proven email and direct marketing strategy. 

Through the past few years, we have developed an enhanced legacy database for automotive prospecting.  While this might not make sense to you at first, our experience with the data has proven it to be a source of significant power for automotive prospecting:

  • First, In-Market Shopper data represents a massive pool of people that historically shop for new cars.  As we know in this space from our years of registration data experience, historic new car shoppers are most likely still new car buyers.  That factor by itself is powerful.
  • Second, Brand History is a very important indicator of future buying preferences.  If you have a history of considering Mazda (for example), you are very likely to consider the brand for future new car considerations.  
  • Finally, with Enhanced Data, we can utilize shopping history and clustering products such as Mosaic or Personicx to analyze and identify those top clusters of the brand competitive set of the product you are focusing on.   A fairly straight forward approach that has proven to yield excellent results.

While legacy In-Market Shopping data by itself is considered weak, we can use our experience and data enhancement capabilities to turn this data into very productive contributors to your email and direct marketing initiative.   While you can take my word for it, I encourage you to consider testing these approaches in your next email or direct marketing intiative. 

Are you ready for “Cash for Clunkers”?

According to the Detroit News on July 2, 2009, June auto sales show that consumers are holding-off on purchases until the Cash for Clunkers program gets started. 

“Consumers encouraged by promising economic signs headed back to dealer showrooms last month, but sales sputtered in late June as prospective buyers waited for the government to introduce its cash-for-clunkers incentives.”

 This was a timely article for me as we were just putting the finishing touches on ICS AutoNet’s new data card for our “Cash for Clunkers” prospect list. 

 Obviously, it’s in the best interest of these consumers who qualify for this program to wait for the “clunker cash.”  As soon as this program starts, they’ll be ready to purchase. 

 So, hopefully auto marketers and dealers realize that the time to connect with these consumers is right now

Through ICS AutoNet’s self-reported data, our “Cash for Clunkers” list allows dealers access to auto ownership and leasing information that State DMVs can no longer provide.  Plus, we specifically designed this file to target consumers who may qualify for the government program.    We can connect dealers to owners of vehicles with targeted makes, models and vehicle years from 2002 and earlier within a specified radius of the dealership. 

 Our list is derived from a comprehensive master file compiled from multiple Shelby-compliant sources and offers more than 100 million records.  Each month, a million fresh records are added to the data file – making it an effective marketing tool for one-time promotions or ongoing campaigns. 

 ICS AutoNet’s Self-reported data file has been successfully applied in automotive marketing, consumer marketing and service-related programs. Following is an overview of available selects:

  • Make and Model
  • Vehicle Year 2002 and before
  • Odometer
  • Postal and telephone;  Email available upon request.
  • Owner demographics and lifestyle (age, income and geography)

 List pricing starts at $115 / M. Please note that we include make, model, vehicle year and geography at no extra charge.  A complete data card is available for more information.