build your social networks using targeted email lists

These days, social networking is becoming more and more of a viable marketing tool. Rather than spending significant amounts of money on old media advertising, political campaigns and non-profits are using sites like linkedin, Facebook and Myspace to reach out to an even larger audience that is specifically targeted to their demographics, for a relatively small investment.

Nonprofits and political campaigns are using these social networks to fundraise, disseminate news, publicize events and drive turnout and build overall awareness of their cause.

Here is an idea to use data to build your online social networking reach- build your email list, append it with demographic data, segment it and use the contact import tool that most of the sites are offering now to send out targeted invites. You change your invitation based on the info you have on the person.

Of course, each person is going to have to add you, but this is a great way to increase the likelihood of that happening. It also saves you time and should build your campaign or organization a nice base for your social network.

Facebook import tool
LinkedIn import tool

be smarter about your list purchases

As a list broker/data provider, I have sold my share of email lists over the years. It amazes me these days how many clients want to just buy the cheap solution (IE: email address and minimal data). Politicians are notorious for this. This kills me every time I get asked for it, because in an attempt to save money, the client is spending foolishly.

Here is an example of what I am talking about...

I recently had a political candidate call me for a fundraising list. He wanted to raise money on the Internet so he asked for a quote on a list of email addresses for all of the donor prospects in his district. All he wanted was email address, name and town. He said he wanted the list to "start working it for donations."

A mentality like this is frustrating because I knew the client was setting himself up for failure. With the sophistication of spam filters and the evolving reading habits of people these days, the old method of sending out as many emails as possible and hoping for a small return rate is over.

In the case of the Congressional candidate, he was going to send out a massive amount of email and receive back little more than a slew of unsubscribes. The list he tried to save money on would basically be rendered useless after 2-3 mailings and he may not even break even on the investment.

Knowing the almost certain outcome, I discussed with him my suggestions to meet his goals. I suggested purchasing an email list that was appended with ideological information and segmenting each email blast so that he targeted the message to the right audience.

He agreed to my solution, and although he spent a little more on his list, he made it up in almost immediately and enjoyed a great deal of fundraising success from the email blasts. He also won grassroots support from the emails, which is an additional perk that he never would have had with his original list idea.

The bottom line is: get as much info as you can on your audience no matter what your objective is. The increase in response to something that is targeted to a certain audience is well worth the initial investment.

The past few years have yielded countless new technological tools that make targeting information very easy. In future posts, I will explore some of these tools.

Welcome to Riverbank Communications....

Thank you for visiting my blog!

This will be a place for me to share with you articles and ideas about the growing importance of data in today's environment.

Our focus will be mostly on the use of data by non-profits and political organizations, but alot of what we discuss can certainly be transferred to the business world.

Please come back soon for new materials......