Boosting your business data lists will increase conversions

Boosting conversions is a numbers game when it comes to B2B email marketing.

There are a number of ways to boost the success of business to business marketing campaigns and as communications technology improves marketers need to do everything they can to stand out from the crowd. But a simple truth that is often forgotten in these days of social media, poking and tweeting is that for a strategy to be successful you need to have numbers on your side - and that means increasing the number of contacts on your business lists.

Having a wealth of information to draw on when embarking on a marketing campaign will stand you in good stead when it comes to generating sales and improving your conversion rate. Starting with a broad base will bolster return-on-investment and it is far easier to segment a substantial database of contacts than it is to tailor every individual email marketing message to a single recipient - which will be far too costly and much too time consuming for most firms.

Unfortunately, the old maxim less is more does not apply to email marketing. That is not to say that you should be using your business lists to spam thousands of people with hundreds of messages. But it does mean that having plenty of easily contactable people at your fingertips will make every single one of your marketing campaigns better.

One of the key reasons you need more contacts than you might at first expect is that open rates are never 100 per cent. In fact, if they get close to 25 per cent you're doing well. So for every single opened email you will generally have three other recipients who have not had time to engage, or have moved your message straight to their trash can. Unopened messages are the scourge of business to business marketers, but unfortunately they are inevitable. No matter how well targeted your email campaign is, you are always going to end up with a substantial amount of unread mail - which is why it is vital to err on the side of caution and email more people than you expect to respond. It's not dissimilar to airlines over-booking flights. There are always going to be cancellations. And cancellations mean empty seats and a lower return-on-investment.

On top of that there is the problem of out-of-date information, which can cause any number of B2B email marketing messages to bounce back. So you need to make sure your business lists are up-to-date. Emails that bounce back can cause a number of problems. If you have too many your internet service provider (ISP) could take action and blacklist your marketing email address. This can have disastrous results as it could prevent you from sending any emails to your clients at all! Choosing a reputable company like thomsonlocal.com, who can guarantee the information held is current is the easiest way to avoid this.

But poor-quality, out of date information can have other consequences - including reputational damage. You could end up sending your marketing to the wrong person or wrong company. While this can cause embarrassment and result in the loss of a sale, it can also result in your messages being flagged up as spam by end-users, which could have the same result as emailing addresses that are no longer in use.

In short, having plenty of email addresses to target is a must, but the information you have on those individuals and companies must be 100 per cent accurate otherwise your conversion rate will still suffer.