Does marketing automation work if I only have a cold list of records?

Marketing automation systems are tools - a way to automate the great marketing you should be doing without the tool. Long before we had today's marketing automation, B2B marketers were still running integrated campaigns -- it just took 2-4 systems and several manual hand-offs to make it all work. And of course, the behavioral scoring was not always possible because we didn't have the cookies-based online tracking we now have.

If you have a cold list of names, the first step would be to verify those names (do they still work at the company, do you have the right address, phone & email?), and possibly do an opt-in campaign to get them opted into your list for email. The verification process will generally be a manual process - using online research (LinkedIn) and then telephone verification.

Once you know if the contacts are valid, you can market to them - via direct mail or telemarketing if they are not email opted-in. We have done telemarketing campaigns to invite contacts to opt in - offer them some content and ask them to opt in to receive it via email. However you reach out to them, don't give them features and function and a sales pitch - give them more value-added content that is relevant to their industry and job role. Use the same type of content you would use to attract prospects with inbound marketing - webinars, whitepapers, articles, etc. If your content is good, they will opt in for more.

At the same time, you can also begin using a marketing automation system and that same content to attract additional, new prospects - there are lots of articles out there on how to get started with inbound marketing / social media (not my area of expertise - still learning on that front!)

I do think it's probably worth it to spend the time and effort to cleanse your house list before investing -- as Gary pointed out marketing automation can be expensive.

During times of growth, about 25% of your mailing list will move within a 12 month period. During a recession the percentage may be more. So, as Jennifer said, you'll want to start contacting these people to verify your information and to ask them to opt-in. Offer some other incentive to get people to respond. Decide if you want them to call/email you directly or go to your website and register.

Your first automated process should be a personalized response to people whether they opt-in or opt-out (tell the latter that you'll honor their request to remove them from your subscription list and offer another chance to opt-in).

Holly,

You have to start somewhere. Marketing Automation allows organization to conduct marketing activities more efficiently. Therefore if your goal is to clean that list and more accurately segment your database MA can be a great tool to do so along with other data append tools like Jigsaw.

Your strategy should also be heavily weighted on organically growing that list through demand generation activities. Of course, as with any product there are a host of pitfalls that can hamstring the success of these solutions. We have a great paper that discusses how to succeed with MA. you can access it here:

http://my.leadmd.com/NA9.7CommonmisstepsOfMarketingAutomation.html

Holly,

It’s true that most marketing automation implementations involve either customers or existing prospects – people with whom the company has had prior contact – but there’s no reason why you couldn’t use the same technology against a cold list.

Case in point – we’re currently developing an integrated demand generation campaign for a client targeting a select group of contacts at key accounts. The campaign will involve a series of both email and direct mail “touches” all driving the prospects to a single, custom Web microsite. The client sourced the names from their CRM database and outside lists and has taken great pains to verify the contact information. Nonetheless, it is, for the most part, a cold list.

We’ll be heavily leveraging the client’s marketing automation platform to broadcast the emails and track response. What will marketing automation do for us that a run-of-the-mill email engine wouldn’t?

* once any of the target contacts opens any of the emails (and is “cookied” by the system), that individual’s contact information will appear pre-populated on response forms, increasing conversion rates

* once cookied in the manner described above, we can track that same contact’s Web activity – i.e. visits to the client’s Website or the campaign microsite – and automatically trigger sales alerts based on that activity, regardless of whether the person ever fills out a form

* if we fulfill downloadable content via email, we can track whether the respondent actually downloaded (i.e. read) that content and trigger action accordingly – for example, sending the respondent a friendly reminder 2 days later if he/she has failed to download the offer

* we can design the program to withhold incremental touches – or possibly deliver a slightly different message – if we know that any individual contact has opened, or responded to, one or more previous emails, or failed to do any of the above

and so on. This isn’t a typical use case for marketing automation, but there’s plenty that marketing automation will do to make the campaign that much more effective.

Hope that helps. Good luck!

Howard

Holly,

This is an interesting discussion when you consider that most marketing automation programs focus on lead nurturing.

Is a cold list that different from a lead nurture list?

A lead nurture list has the advantage of opt-in (or implied opt-in) but in many ways may be 'cold', in the sense that the responders are very early in the buying process, may not understand your value proposition, may not even be in your target market and certainly not be in a position to speak with a sales rep. Perhaps a better term for communicating with these types of folks is 'prospect nurture'.

With a cold list, you are assured that you are targeting the right accounts with appropriate contacts.

Most importantly, you know who is responding. Given that many responders use personal email addresses (e.g. yahoo, gmail) or falsify the information on forms, by sending an email to a work email address, you are truly identifying prospects.

With this in mind, it does make sense to use marketing automation for a cold list.

One other point I would add to Howard's list of marketing automation benefits over email is that a marketing automation system can lead score prospects over a series of emails yielding a cumulative perspective.

Thanks for the good question,

Robert Lesser
www.directimpactnow.com/blog

I concur with Justin.

I strongly believe a marketing automation system is perfect for managing a "cold list" and beginning a hygiene and nurturing process with the unknown quantity of those contacts.

If you are beginning with a marketing automation initiative and have a cold list that needs some hygiene and scrubbing, you can build a campaign which can cascade conversions into a nurturing program. I would recommend identifying and segmenting the list appropriately in your system to keep from corrupting warmer lists. This overall process may take some time based on what you see with bounce rates, etc. But the initial conversions may garner some early opportunities for further marketing campaigns or even handoff to sales.

Brian Hansford
http://www.Zephyr47.com
@RemarkMarketing

Great answers / My 2 cents:

Embarking on a marketing automation enabled demand gen strategy should be bigger than a single "cold" list. To drive ROI out of a platform, you'll want to view the single list, whether it hot or cold as just one source of prospects. If you are hinging the implementation of marketing automation platform on the quality of single list, quite frankly, you're just not thinking "big" enough.

If you view the list as just one source of potential prospect record input, then a properly designed tagging campaign run against the list should allow you to identify those records in the list that can be moved to a more engaging nurture program. While the remaining records can be purged.

Result:

Good prospects are moved to nurturing
Bad records are purged
List is no longer "cold"

Good Luck!

Matt Given
@Matt_Given

Holly, marketing automation is only as good as your data you provide. Garbage in, garbage out. Investing in marketing automation will shine a bright light on all the broken processes, systems, strategies and cross-functional misalignment in your organization. It can be an extremely expensive way to learn what your organization needs to do differently.