eSales Strategies | Email's "Reach" & Rules for Building Your Database

eSales strategies through email marketing campaigns seem like a fabulous way to reach lots of clients easily, inexpensively and in a timely way with current information. It is important to know what your expected outcome is from any marketing program so you can gauge your results and not be disappointed when numbers fall short of high expectations. So, let's explore some factors to creating effective marketing campaigns.


First of all, you must know your "email's reach". What is "email reach"? Email reach is a function of:

How many client/customer email addresses are collected

How many of the collected emails are put into your database

How many of those emails are error-free

How many clients/customers successfully receive the email

How many clients/customers OPEN the email
For example, if you have a client base of 1,000 people and are trying to build your database of
emails for marketing purposes, you:

Collect addresses from 50% - 500

Enter 95% into database - 475

94% are correct - 447

98% receive the email - 438

33% open the email - 144

That's a total of 14.4% of your total client base that will actually see your email. Just see it. Depending on the content, sense of urgency, relevance and timeliness of the email, this number will further decrease. If you get a 10% response rate when you send out a "call to action" type of email, you now have about 14 clients out of a client base of 1,000 actually responding to you from an email.

So, what does this tell us? It tells us that the quality and depth of our email database is paramount in actually seeing results from an email campaign. Let's look at some rules for accomplishing the first step – increasing the number of emails you collect.


Collecting Addresses

Have Standard Procedures for email collection

Brainstorm with your team on creative ways to collect new emails

Define WHO does what and HOW

Rehearse a "pitch" and response to refusal

Define who puts the addresses into the database and how often

Regularly Request UPDATED Information

Add a note to the bottom of every email:

Changing jobs or email addresses? Remember to let us know of any email address changes!

Annual "Update Your Info" Campaign

Know which Clients have bad email addresses

View "Permanent Failures" when sending out an email

Follow up with those clients to get updated addresses

Update database with "auto-reply" responses that give you information on a new contact


Content must be kept professional, brief and to the point. Clients DO appreciate emails that have RELEVANT, timely information that will help them. Include a table of contents when necessary, and organize information logically. It's ok, and preferable, to link to a website for more information. And please - don't forget the "unsubscribe" language.

Article by Lynne LaFond DeLuca, Sr. Vice President