How One Mailer Switched to E-Mail and Thrived

Therein lay the answer — e-mail append. MFA was able to append more than 100,000 e-mail addresses (24.5 percent) to its postal database within 12 months. It worked with e-mail database service provider FreshAddress on the project.

In their presentation at ACCM, Austin Bliss, president/co-founder of FreshAddress, and Ellen Bragalone, director of retail operations for MFA, provided the following factors businesses should consider when looking for an e-mail append vendor:

1. Solid reputation. Ask for testimonials, references and a credible client list.
2. Experience and knowledge. Make sure e-mail appending is the vendor's primary area of focus.
3. Price. Be wary of offers that are “too good to be true.”
4. Stringent data protection protocols. Understand how your data will be protected.
5. One hundred percent opted-in data. Insist on the time, date and URL of the opt-in.
6. Suppressions. The vendor should run your unsubscribe list and suggest other suppressions.
7. Robust data hygiene. Double-scrub your results.
8. Deliverable results. Vendors should offer a 100 percent guarantee that your results will not bounce.

After MFA had its appended e-mail addresses, it needed to integrate them carefully into its existing database and e-mail marketing strategy. Here’s what it did: