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How to prevent the pollution of your mailing list by ‘anonymous’ contacts - I
How many anonymous contacts does your mailing list contain? People you only know by their email address? 70, 80 percent?
All of these addresses contain a tremendous potential if you rescue them from anonymity. So why not prevent them becoming phantoms from the start?
The recent story of a friend’s business trip to Paris
Or how a few snippets of ready available information hide an enormous potential.
As always my friend had booked a standard room, only this time he had to pick another hotel because his regular one was fully booked.
Checking-in after a quick first business meeting in the lobby of the hotel, he was upgraded to a Junior Suite without any extras to pay. Was it a courtesy of the hotel management for a first time guest?
Not really and yes.
In his rush to be in time for his meeting, he had handed over his business card at the reception desk asking them to start the check-in procedure. The information on his business card led the hotel management to look up his LinkedIn profile and Twitter account; they decided immediately that he was a 'VIP ' guest.
Do you ever look up your new contacts in detail?
A little parallel story of my own experience with galleries.
When visiting an exhibition I am often asked if I'm interested in receiving their announcements or their newsletter. Much to my surprise, when I fill in my email address in their guestbook besides a 'thank you' afterwards …
nothing happens. Not one question ...
Why do so many galleries miss such excellent opportunities to establish a first contact?
True, compared to the hotel business, competition is on another level, but it's as hard to convert a new visitor.
Gallery visitors, fair goers hand over their business cards or leave their name and email address in your guestbook as a sure sign they want you to stay in contact.
So, what's the next thing you should do?
“Secure” the freshly collected email addresses. By entering them into your email application, preferably in your email management system.
But there's a much more important thing you should start up even before: 'visitors' anonymity prevention'.
See when you store people's email addresses without any additional step, most (in fact 'all') risk turning into anonymous addressees very quickly.
After three more hectic days in your art fair booth, urgent phone calls in your gallery, your guestbook's email addresses only processed after the exhibition is over, remembering the person, not to mention further details or characteristics becomes a giant clutter.
Do 'where', 'when', 'why'... ring a bell?
Combined with the email address it's the moment to use these clues as 'anchors' that will help to classify this first contact.
These simple snippets of information will not only be a great help later on to remember the person more easily. So, plan some extra fields in your email database to insert:
- Where you met them (gallery, art fair, opening, reception, private, …)
- When you met them (right... even the exact date or )
- What you talked about (artist, roster,...)
- One particularity about the person
You can quickly write down some keywords on the back of the business card or in a special add-on you combine with your guestbook.
Normally it's the 'why' that leads in order of importance. When it comes to email marketing, another snippet of information becomes paramount: 'who'. 'Who' is that person that empowers you without knowing?
It takes only a single question
Few people present themselves spontaneously. You can only come closer to this when you switch to 'pro-active' mode and ... ask.
Most people aren't even aware, but each of them will give you the key information that will help you to prevent they 'disappear' for ever.
Because who, what, when, why, where,... are all elements that are of tremendous help to differentiate, segment and target your messages. Moreover, you rely on information you collected personally on the spot.
Sometimes you only have a split second. It really is all about this initial phase in the contact.
Don't hesitate, ask.
It's simply crucial to stop polluting your mailing list and start building contacts that will sustain and nourish your gallery's 'lifeline'.
Luuk Christiaens
P.S. Some examples of how a few simple anchors can be of help later on?
- When you want to send an announcement about one of your artists, you can the segment the appropriate contacts that showed a real interest in the artist.
- You can easily follow-up or revive the contacts (per artist) you made during a previous art fair
- When you notice that your email announcements are no longer opened, you can send targeted messages to that person recalling 'We met at [art fair x...]', or 'When we met in the gallery in November 2012, we talked about [...]', “During your visit at [the artist's name show] in the gallery...'...
all these thanks to some diligence right from the beginning.
P.P.S. I know, the overall majority of your contacts are nothing but email addresses collected by filling in their email address when they subscribed.
How you can get more information out of these 'anonymous' contacts or how business cards hide more contact potential than you imagine, will be subject of series of articles.
Stay tuned.
In the meantime, why not (re)read some more articles in the Back Room ?