The Secret to a Sound E-mail Acquisition Strategy

Subscriber lifetime value guides your investment decisions

• Evaluate subscriber registration promotions on your Web site. How easy is it for customers to register for your e-mail program online? No matter what your lifetime value is, evaluating online registration is a must because it is the single most cost-effective way to acquire a new subscriber. Yet when put to the test, even the most sophisticated brands are not promoting online registration effectively. Work with your Web team to determine what areas of your site draw the most traffic and start there. But keep in mind, once a visitor determines that your product or service is right for her, registration should be less than a click away.
• Reward subscribers for signing up. It's an easy decision to reward new subscribers with a $5 coupon when your lifetime value is more than $265. When your lifetime value is significantly lower, consider less expensive alternatives such as a monthly contest for new subscribers or giving away something of perceived value, such as a whitepaper or product comparison chart.
• Train employees to collect e-mail addresses. In the store or on the phone, it's a simple matter of training to get your employees to collect e-mail addresses. Cost can become an issue if you choose to incentivize employees or upgrade your point-of-sale system for e-mail collection. But again, lifetime value can help you determine if these investments make sense based on the profit you stand to make.
• Use transactional e-mails to entice subscribers. It's no surprise that the highest open rates in the industry belong to transactional e-mails-order and shipping confirmations, account updates, and so on. In most cases, these are customers who already are interested in your products, but may not be in registered to receive promotional e-mails. Promoting the benefits of e-mail registration not only makes perfect sense in a transactional message, it's also essentially free. You don't need lifetime value to make your decision.
• Invest in an acquisition plan. Many other tactics exist that require a willingness to invest in subscriber acquisition. Some are relatively inexpensive, such as including an invitation to register in your service agreements. Others would require an analysis against lifetime value, such as including a postage-paid registration form in your product packaging. You also can invest in the services of an e-mail appending company that can associate the physical addresses of your customers with e-mail addresses, or locate new e-mail addresses for undeliverable subscribers, and you can invite them to opt in to your e-mail program.

Lifetime Value Is Worth the Time
Calculating the lifetime value of e-mail subscribers is clearly a vital step in boosting any company's e-mail marketing program. It costs nothing to do the calculations, but the result could be very helpful in getting your e-mail subscriber acquisition program off the ground.

Arthur Middleton Hughes is director of subscriber acquisition strategy for e-Dialog, an e-mail marketing services provider. With Arthur Sweetser, he is the author of "Successful E-mail Marketing Strategies: from Hunting to Farming" (RACOM 2009). He can be reached at ahughes@edialog.com.

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