If you’re finding you’re sending out regular marketing emails which seem to be well received and popular, but which don’t have a click-through rate as high as you’d like, you’re not alone. Could it be that you’re focusing too much on what you are sending, and not enough on who you’re sending your content to?

That was certainly the case for the highly respected Wokingham-based direct marketing guru Drayton Bird, described by Ogilvy & Mather founder David Ogilvy as knowing ‘more about direct marketing than anyone else in the world’.
Drayton Bird’s company’s target list for emails comprised mainly copywriters, and a comparatively low proportion of business owners. So, while the copywriters were being complimentary about the content sent, and took an interest in it, they weren’t the ones making the decisions, resulting in the low click-through rate.
It was only when Bird realised this, and focused on the list rather than content, that he began to see the results he wanted. We couldn’t put it better than the man himself (after all he creates content for a living) when he says:
“Your list is always going to be more critical than your copy. Or, in plain language, targeting matters more than creative.”
Reach the decision makers
Given the length of time it can take for an organisation to make a decision, not least a significant one, even the best creative content will represent wasted effort if it doesn’t end up in the hands of the right decision-makers. Your email won’t receive a reply and will be lost in the endless digital noise unless you’re lucky enough to reach someone at the same time as they happen to have an urgent requirement for what you’re offering.
The blunt reality is that your list and targeting are always going to matter more than your creative copy. Targeting genuine potential clients will always yield better results than the strongest email ever written if it reaches an irrelevant recipient. It’s simply not enough for your marketing emails just to be read with interest if they don’t ultimately lead to a sale.
Who's on your list?
So, who is on your list? How do you make sure you’re targeting the right people with up-to-date, compliant data?
1. Determine who needs your product/service and why? Allocate some time to learn more about your target audience; their needs, emotional and logical buying behaviours, and how you can satisfy them in a way that’s better than other suppliers. This information is fundamental to reaching your target market.
2. To develop personalised, cross-channel campaigns you will need to engage prospects across email, web, and mobile which will help you grow your business and boost your marketing ROI. To do this successfully you will need to match:
- Industry Sectors
- Companies
- Indices
- Websites
- Services
- Key technology platform
- Country and language
- Locations
- Job roles (primary, plus all contacts
- Full name and salutation
- Email and DDI
3. You will need to use a database to obtain this information. This will allow you to build your campaign around your target audience and successfully deliver it to them. It guarantees that each and every time you communicate, you are speaking with a decision-maker who is open to conversation and has a need for your product or service.
However, creating your own exhaustive database and keeping it relevant, compliant, and up-to-date can be extremely hard work and costly. That’s why it makes sense to consider using an external on-demand B2B data provider. For example, all of our data is meticulously gathered by our in-house team of native researchers which is why we can guarantee complete coverage of EMEA to ensure we provide you with a synchronised, continually up-to-date resource.
4. In addition, the more you can niche down your audience and fine-tune your content to match their needs, the more success you will have. Marketers who used segmented campaigns report as much as a 760% increase in revenue. (Campaign Monitor). That means that once you’ve defined your target audience you then need to segment it. To do that you’re going to need a database platform that enables you to do that, whether it’s filtering by region, size or turnover, verticals, company, or job title, to create as many individual niche audiences as you can. This makes sure you address the right contacts in the right companies with the right messaging and this will help make your message more impactful to drive results.
For example, should you wish to penetrate a specific sector overseas, you can manipulate an on-demand database to generate a list of suitable businesses including locations, industries, size demographic, primary contacts, etc. within your target country/market. This strategy gives you the ability to target precisely who you wish and instantly access your target audience – eliminating one of the biggest marketing challenges: penetration. Empowered with detailed, drilled-down information your campaigns will connect, resonate and achieve your business goals.
So what's most important? Content or data?
The honest answer is that both are extremely important if you want to achieve optimum engagement, grow your pipeline and boost sales.
Data however is ultimately what’s going to make the difference to your success. Without the right data it could be argued that your content is irrelevant. That’s why data has to come first, only data can generate results for you, so that has to be your primary focus and where you invest most of your budget.
The reality is that if you send average content to the right people whilst you may not get the optimum results possible you can still generate prospects, customers and new revenues.However, if you send well-crafted content to the wrong people you won’t get anything from the campaign and your budget will have been wasted.
For example, you wouldn’t create the world’s greatest lawnmower and go door-to-door selling in a block of flats because obviously you wouldn’t sell any lawnmowers there. Yet if you created an average lawnmower some people with lawns would still buy it. That’s why your audience and therefore your data, is always going to be more important than your content.
So the key message here is don’t neglect data if you want your future marketing campaigns to have maximum impact. There is now plenty of data out there available to purchase with numerous B2B data providers in the market – we’ve been doing this for over 25 years now so we’ve seen lots come and go! In fact if you think you need to purchase B2B data we’ve compiled a handy guide to the questions you should ask to help you choose the best B2B data provider to meet your specific needs. And whilst there are lots of B2B data providers not all data is the same so we’ve also created a comprehensive competitor comparison featuring some of the big names in this sector that will enable you to quickly compare key information.
At i-4business we offer an online demo of our industry-leading B2B data platform and the additional option of an unlimited 30-day free trial which gives you full, unrestricted access to our entire database at absolutely no cost for 30 days. You can look up as many contacts and/or companies as you want during that time enabling you to see exactly what you would get with our subscription accounts and personally evaluate the quality and compliance of our data.
To book an online demo or request a free data trial just click on the links or please get in touch with one of the i-4business team today on 01252 367400.